love never comes easy
by LeontillyBalambgirl
Summary: AU.A chance encounter lands a teen runaway in Balamb garden. but while shes falling for gardens bad boy seifer, the quiet and mysterious squall is falling for her...and things get way more than complicated..love always is.[Seinoa,squinoa]
1. strange events

**Disclaimer:**I do not own final fantasy 8. i wish i did. i really really wish i did. but als, i do not.

**Note: **ok, bit of a better summary. This is an Au story and it basically is about what happens when new girl Rinoa turns up at garden after Squall saves her life. She is attracted to Seifers "bad boy" charm and immmediately starts to fall for him, but she is unaware of Who is falling for her and what will it take her to realise that there maybe someone more suitable for her out there. and when she realises who she really wants she could be too late. so there you go. this is my first attempt at Au so sorry if it sucks. i warn you the first chapters a lil strange.lol. i have this ongoing at the same time as another story, but they'll both have quick updates now, as i'm off school for a while so i'll get loads of time to write. Ok well thanks to Wayne as he is one of the only reasons i keep writing, as i know he'll keep reading and also thanks to hannah the other reason i keep writing and my best mate and best plot bunny helper. love ya!!. well hope y'all like the story.

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Squall Leonheart looked up at the sky. It was starting to darken, the first stars starting to appear. The young Garden student glanced at his watch. 9.25pm. Practically curfew. Figuring he should probably head back to Garden he started making his way through the densely wooden forest, weaving through the trees. The forests on Balamb were amongst Squalls favourite places to train ; the monsters were beatable, yet still challenging. But as he pushed through the trees a loud scream pierced the silent night.

Immediately he reached for his gun blade and scanned the area around him, but he couldn't see anyone. After a few seconds he carried on walking but there came another scream, this one louder and nearer. Then there was a sudden rustling in the trees a few yards behind Squall, and a few seconds later a young girl emerged form the trees crying hysterically and running at a frantic speed. She was staring straight at the ground and ran nearly right past Squall. He reached out and grabbed the girls arm and pulled her so she was standing in front of him.

"hey are you…."But before he had a chance to finish his question the girl started to struggle violently against his grip

"Just let go of me." she cried, tears flowing down her face "I gave you everything I had. Just let me go!!!!" she pushed herself with all her strength out if his grip and spun around, obviously intending to run back in the direction she came from. But after another few seconds there was more rustling in the trees and then two guys appeared.

"What the hell" Squall muttered, starting to become alarmed by the situation.

The girl, upon seeing the two people, screamed again and tried to run past them, but one of the guys grabbed her by the arm and dragged her towards him.

"no!! please just let me go!!" she wailed still trying to shake off his grip. "Somebody Help me" she screamed.

Squall figured it was about time he intervened-this situation didn't seem exactly positive.

One of the two guys-neither of whom had noticed Squall for some reason-started dragging the girl back into the trees when the other finally noticed Squall. He was about 25, tall well built and had an evil glint in his eye.

"Who the hell are you kid?"

"What's going on?' Squall demanded

"None of your damn businesses" the guy hissed clenching his fists, obviously preparing for a fight. He was clearly planning to take out Squall, he being the only witness to whatever these guys were doing with this random girl.

"Let the girl go"

The guy laughed "hero are we?". He lunged towards Squall, throwing a quick punch which he managed to dodge. Squall quickly drew his gun blade and assumed a fighting stance

"What the…" the guy said obviously stunned by the fact Squall was in fact armed.

He glanced at his friend, then glanced back at Squall. Then he turned and ran back into the trees. His friend, seeing this, releases his grip on the girl, dropping her to the floor and followed his friend in running away from Squall.

The young girl was pushing herself of the ground slowly and Squall could still hear her crying. "Are you ok?" he asked approaching the girl, who now standing, was for some reason swaying backwards and forwards. She didn't answer but she looked at him, but tat that moment she seemed just to collapse falling backwards. Squall, who rather luckily had very quick reflexes, reached out and caught the girl about a millisecond before she hit the ground.

He pressed his fingers against her neck, searching for a pulse. Weak as it was, he finally found one. Whatever had happened to this girl had been pretty serious, as Squall could see red marks all around the girls neck, were someone had clearly grabbed her by the throat. Squall became more and more intrigued by this mysterious situation and the mysterious girl. Her clothes were torn and covered in dust and dirt and her arms and hands were covered in cuts and little bruises. Realising that he had actually not yet seen the face of this random girl he brushed aside the mass of tangled jet black hair that had been covering her face. Her face was covered in smears of dirt, cuts and he could see the tracks of the tears she'd cried. But underneath it all it was fairly obvious that she had a beautiful face. Her skin was pale and soft and her features were delicate and gentle. She was a young girl, Squall guessed 17 at the oldest. Squall was contemplating exactly what he should do next when he noticed something silver sparkling on the ground a few inches away. He reached out and picked it up. It was a silver chain, holding a small silver ring and it seemed to shine almost strangely in the light of two stars which had appeared almost directly above were Squall sat, the young girl lying unconscious next to him. He put the chain in his pocket, and then unsure of what else to do, he picked the girl up and started to head back through the forest to Balamb garden…..

When Squall finally reached Garden he headed straight for the infirmary, were for some reason Headmaster cid was sitting having tea with Dr Kadowaki. Both sets of eyes fixated on Squall.

One eyebrow raised, Cid said "Who on earth is that girl?"

"I don't know" Squall said lying the girl down on one of the beds in the infirmary rooms "I found her"

Cid, with a puzzled expression repeated "you…found her.."

Dr Kadowaki, who was by now examining the young girl said "There's quite a lot of cuts and bruises, and her breathing is not very strong at all. What in the world is going on Squall?"

Squall rubbed his forehead and brushed his hair out of his face. He realised how strange this must have seemed to other people. "I don't know what happened. She was…attacked or something, she was being chased and then there were these guys and she was really scared and she just collapsed. So I couldn't just leave her were I found her"

"Were did all this happen?" Cid asked concernedly

"Out in the forest. I was training when she just…appeared. Is she gonna be ok Dr Kadowaki?"

"Hmmmm" the Doctor paused to check the girls pulse "She should be fine. Mostly they seem like surface wounds, nothing internal. Of course I'll need to examine her properly. But it's most likely that she collapsed due to stress or fear or exhaustion." the Doctor glanced at Squall and could see that there was a look of worry hiding in his cold blue eyes "There's not really a lot we can do at the moment. You should go and get some rest Squall, and if you wish come back in the morning to check on her"

Squall nodded and left the infirmary. Rest seemed so appealing. His body was tired and aching and he threw himself on his bed as soon as he got to his dorm room. But as he lay in the dark he couldn't seem to stop thinking about the nights strange events. He wondered what would have happened to the girl if he had not been there. And every time he closed his eyes he couldn't seem to shake the image of this girls face from his mind. He kept seeing her face with all it's beauty and innocence underneath the cuts and marks.

"Damn it Squall" he muttered to himself "Get some sleep…"

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well next chapter we find out more about this mystery girl...


	2. the angelic stranger

**Disclaimer:**i don't own ff8. shocking huh?

**Note:**ok, well here is another chapter of weird random story. In this we find a little more about the mystery forest girl. more chapters coming soon. Thanks to wayne for all his support, thanks to Renegade seraph too am glad someones enjoyin the story and of course as i promised her, this hannah is dedicated to my oh so superb plot bunny helper and best mate hannah. you rock girl!!!! enjoy the story everyone xx

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The next morning Squall woke up with the events of the previous night still fresh in his mind and his muscles still aching and throbbing. He had after all carried a girl for over 15 minutes last night, and while she wasn't exactly heavy, she wasn't light as a feather.

Deciding to forgo training that morning, Squall headed for the cafeteria to get some coffee, but on his way he was cornered by Headmaster Cid

"Ahh, Squall good morning"

"Morning sir" Squall mumbled, still not fully awake.

"Where you planning on stopping by the infirmary today?"

Squall shrugged

"Well please do, Dr Kadowaki asked me to tell you to stop by"

Squall couldn't decide whether or not he was happy about this. It certainly hadn't been his plan, in fact he'd hope to just forget all about the strange night he'd had, but in a way he was also a little happy that he got to check up on the mysterious girl without seeming too interested.

Arriving at the infirmary, he walked in to see Dr Kadowaki sitting behind her desk frowning

"You wanted to see me for something?" Squall asked

"Ahh squall yes" The doctor said "you see…the girl has woken up but unfortunately we can't get anything out of her, not even a name. She just stays completely silent. I'm very concerned about it all. I'm not sure she's entirely… stable"

"She's probably just scared"

"Yes I suppose that's true. But its just the silence. I was examining her last night and I noticed something, well quite worrying. She had some very deep cuts on her wrists, they were fairly old, not from last night and most likely self inflicted. That's why I'm worried. If she was already…troubled, then last night may have pushed her over the edge. We really need to get her to talk to us before we can help her. that's why I asked you to come here. I was hoping you would talk to her"

"Me? W-why would I talk to her?"

"Well, she may feel less scared by someone closer to her age, less like she is being interrogated. Would you try. At least for a name?"

"I'll try, for a little bit" Squall conceded

He walked into the little room and saw that the girl was sitting up at the end of the bed, holding her knees tightly to her chest and resting her head on them. She did not acknowledge-or simply did not notice-Squall entering the room.

"Hey" he said unsure of how else to get her attention.

The girl very slowly lifted her head and looked at him. There was a look of recognition that flashed across her face

"you…" she said "You…were there last night"

Squall nodded. "Are you ok?"

The girl stayed silent for a while before slowly saying "Where am I?"

"Balamb Garden"

"Ok" the girl said quietly

Squall leaned against the door frame. This seem like it was going to be a long job. This girl sure didn't seem keen to offer up any details at all.

"Do you have a name?" Squall asked the girl

From the look on the girls face it seemed she was debating whether or not she should tell Squall her name or not. Finally she nodded. "Rinoa. Rinoa Heartilly"

Squall felt like he was getting somewhere even if it was in very small steps. A name was more than anyone else had got so far.

"I'm Squall" he said trying to make the girl feel slightly more comfortable

"Leonheart" the girl finished without looking at him "you're Squall Leonheart right?"

'_Ok' _Squall thought to himself _'How the hell did she know my name?'_

"How'd you know that?" he asked her, a mixture of suspicion and confusion.

"I heard the Doctor and that man Cid talking about you." Squall found something very strange in the way this girl spoke. She said things in an almost absent-minded way, as if she was reading lines from something, but talking to no one in particular, while her thoughts were obviously off somewhere else entirely. "The man was saying that there had to be a way to get me to talk, but the Doctor said she'd tried already and then he said that they'd have to find someone who I would talk to. And then the woman said that perhaps they should find Squall Leonheart. Which is you. So I guess you're here to try and get information from me"

"Kind of. Why wouldn't you tell Kadowaki anything?"

She shrugged "I didn't want to get into trouble"

"Why would you get into trouble?" Squall asked becoming more and more confused by the random responses he was receiving from this girl

The girl shrugged again.

"All right, you're probably still scared and upset, I get that. But you have to tell me what happened, how the hell did you end up in that situation last night?"

"I don't want to get in trouble I told you" the girl whispered

Now Squall was just completely confused. He wondered if Kadowaki had been right and this girl really was on the unstable side. "Look you're not going to get into trouble, I promise. Just tell me"

The girl breathed deeply "I ran away". It was evident from her accent that she was not from around Balamb, but Squall was still unsure how this really answered his question.

"you ran away" he repeated

"yes. A few days ago. I ran away from Deling city. So the farthest I could get with what money I had was Balamb. I was going to try and settle in the town, you know nice and quiet place. But somehow when I got off the train I managed to get lost in a forest. And it was like so scary. And there were these guys, and they grabbed me and I had no idea what to do 'cause they…."she stopped to wipe a few tears from her eyes. Squall felt a sudden stab of sympathy for the girl. Whatever had happened was obviously not something the girl found it particularly easy to talk about. She seemed to speak every word slowly and carefully as if she were trying to put together a story.

"What did these people do?" Squall felt guilty trying to prise information from someone who was very clearly very upset, but he didn't really have much of a choice, they needed to know what had happened

"they took everything I had. Everything I brought with me, my money, my jewellery, everything, then they just knocked me around a bit. Then I ran, and they chased me…but I'm lucky I guess."

"Lucky" Squall echoed. Nothing about what had happened seemed lucky to him.

"I'm lucky that you were there. Who knows what else they would of done if you weren't there. I mean ..well I don't actually remember anything after I saw you."

"You passed out" Squall told the girl, remembering the events of last night

"y-you probably saved my life" the girl said

Something about those words and the sweetness and vulnerability with which they were spoken made them echo in Squalls head.

"ok well I'm just going to go and tell the Doctor ok so we can find out what to do next" he turned and headed for the door

"Squall" Rinoa said. He turned around to look at her, and her eyes looking down to the floor she said softly and quietly "Thank you"………….

Squall stood at Kadowakis' desk explaining the situation to her. "So I don't know what we do" he concluded after telling her all of the facts.

"Well" Kadowaki said sitting down at her desk "We have a name now which helps greatly. Once I've checked her out, for any serious injuries, we can look her up, find her family and let them know were she is"

"Ok. Can I go now?" Squall asked. This had not been at all how he'd planned to spend his day. He had had no intention of becoming in any which way involved in this girls situation, but he could feel himself getting pulled further into it. He thought it best that he leave before this girl got into his head anymore than he was realising she already had.

"Actually Squall, Cid asked me to fill him in when we knew anything more, I'd better go and find him, so I don't suppose you could go and tell the girl what's happening."

Squall sighed "Fine".

He headed back into the little room were the girl was now sitting on the end of the bed with her back to the door humming to herself quietly.

"S'cuse me" he said to get the girls attention again

Rinoa turned around, her dark hair whipping behind her, and Squall was amazed at just how beautiful she was. There was something about her almond shaped eyes and delicate cheek bones that struck Squall as being almost angelic.

"Hey again" she said quietly

"Ok, we know what's happening now. Ok we're going to look up your family and then once Kadowaki's checked that none of your injuries our serious, we'll call them and they can come get you"

Suddenly the girl jumped up "You can't do that!"

"What? Why?"

"you just cant!" she cried

"there's not actually much else we can do, it's our only option"

"Please listen to me Squall. You can not call my family" tears were starting to glimmer in her eyes. Squall could not quite place what he found so incredibly intriguing about this girl but there was definitely something.

"Why not?' he asked her again hoping he might get a proper answer this time

"because…because my family is my father. And I do not want him to know were I am. Like I told you, I was running away. Well it was him I was running away from"

"Well, I don't think we have any other choice Rinoa"

"Then I'm leaving right now" she said trying to push past squall who was standing in the doorway

"I'm not letting you leave. We can't just let you go wandering off again. You're too young and its not safe and it wouldn't be a good idea"

"I'm not too young I'm17 and I can take care of myself"

"Looking at last night, evidently you can't"

"Fine. But please Squall…" there was a rising desperation in her voice. A that moment footsteps, and the familiar voices of Cid and Dr Kadowaki could be heard approaching the room. Rinoa reached out and grabbed Squall by the arm "please, don't let them call my father, he'll…he'll… just please don't. I'm begging you Squall"

Squall was about to answer her when Kadowaki and Cid appeared in the room.

"hello Miss Heartilly. I assume you know what's happening now. We're going to contact your family once the doctor has done a proper examination to check you're all well healthy"

"Um, I really don't need examining" the girl protested

"It's procedure I'm afraid. Now" the doctor turned to Squall and Cid, out you two, the quicker we start the quicker we can get Miss Heartilly home"

Cid stepped out of the room and Squall did the same but just before he left he turned quickly and looked at the girl, catching her eyes exactly. He could see they were full of desperation and tears waiting to fall. Looking directly in to his eyes the girl mouthed "Please" before closing her eyes and dropping her head. And for once in a very long time Squall had absolutely no idea what to do next.

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well in the next chapter we see things from Rinoas point of view, including the meeting of the gardens bad boy; seifer almasy!!!!!!!!!!!


	3. Seifer

**Disclaimer:**dont own ff8. really.

**Note: **Well heres another chapter in which we meet Seifer. thanks to anyone reading and reviewing the story and hope y'all are enjoying it. more coming soon.

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Rinoa Heartilly sat nervously in the small room as the doctor timed her pulse.

"Y'know I'm fine, I really am. There's no need for all this" Rinoa hated doctors. They made her extremely nervous and scared

"Well we're almost done here anyway" The doctor said. Kind as this Doctor was, it didn't make Rinoa feel any less on edge. She lifted her hand and ran her fingertips through her hair, but she noticed the doctors gaze settle on her wrist, in particular the 3 deep cuts across it. Immediately, she dropped her arm down to her side and hoped the Doctor wouldn't comment on what she had seen. Rinoa already had people checking her physical health, she didn't want them thinking she need psychiatric help too. She didn't need help, she'd just had one really really bad day and one moment of weakness were she gave into the notion that maybe physical pain would negate the pain she was feeling inside. She had hoped that even the few seconds in which she blacked out would be enough to get her through the pain she was suffering inside. But after that she knew her only option was to run away, it was the only way she'd escape.

Tears began to form in her eyes as she though about this.

Almost as if the Doctor was reading her thoughts she said " So, Squall told me you ran away from home and that's how you ended up in Balamb"

"Yes" Rinoa muttered

"is there anything you want to maybe talk about?" Dr kadowaki asked kindly, but Rinoa shook her head quickly. She didn't want talk about why she'd ran away, she just wanted to put it all behind her.

"Well then, I think we're about done here" the Doctor concluded, opening the door and inviting Rinoa to take a Seat at her desk, along with headmaster Cid.

"So am I allowed to go now?" Rinoa asked anxiously

"Well" Cid said "Is there not someone we could contact and tell them were you are, you've suffered a few nasty events Miss Heartilly"

"I know. But I'd really rather just go alone thanks"

"Were would you go? You have no money, no clothes, no things. I don't think you'd be entirely safe out there." The doctor frowned

At that moment a look of interest spread across the mans face, it was almost like a cartoon, like a little light bulb had gone off in his head.

"Well" the man said "there is always the option that perhaps you stay here at Garden for a while. I don't know if that appeals to you, but it is worth considering, don't you think Dr Kadowaki"

The Doctor nodded enthusiastically.

"Um. What is Garden exactly?" Rinoa asked, feeling a little stupid

"Well, primarily, a training facility. We train elite forces of fighters"

"Like that guy Squall? He was a pretty good fighter"

"indeed, Squall is one of our best cadets. But we don't just train fighters here. You can learn a lot of other things, like for example magic or something like medicine. Or even some of the more traditional subjects like history politics or science. We welcome everyone here. A lot of our students are just young people like yourself who feel like they need a change or a purpose in their life".

Rinoa was struck by the kindness of this welcoming man. She was very tempted by his offer. She thought that maybe she'd be much happier here, around others her age than being alone.

"I think…I think I might quite like to stay here. If that would be okay"

"Of course!" the man beamed "Yes, of course. Now there is paperwork and such like to be dealt with but for now I think that you should just get a feel for the Garden before you sign anything. Perhaps we could arrange someone to show you around, get you used to the place for a few weeks…"

At the moment the door swung open and Rinoa glanced up to see who had come into the room. She inhaled slightly at the sight of the person. He was a tall, broad shouldered young man, wearing a long grey trench coat . He had a strong well defined face and short fair hair and seemed to automatically exude an air of confidence and attractiveness, and when he spoke he had a deep and almost entrancing, rhythmic voice "You seen Leonhart?" he asked "Some med student told me he was here. He skipped out on training this morning"

"Hello Seifer. Squall was here but he left not too long ago" Dr Kadowaki told him

"Damn." Seifer said turning and heading for the door

"Wait" Cid called out "Seeing as you're here Seifer I have a job for you"

"What is it?" Seifer sighed

"This is Miss Heartilly. She'll be joining us here at Garden. You're going to show her around keep an eye on her for the next week or so please"

"Oooh babysitting great" the guy rolled his eyes. "Fine then. C'mon lets go" he said glancing at Rinoa. Rinoa wasn't exactly disappointed that he would be the one showing her around. He just seemed so…confident.

He left the infirmary and strode down the corridor, his long trench coat billowing behind him. "I'm Seifer" he said bluntly as Rinoa scurried after him "Looks like I'm stuck with you, so don't get in my way and it'll be fine"

Rinoa just nodded. She knew this guy was being really quite rude, but there was something about his whole attitude that was just so…alluring.

"I'm Rinoa by the way. So um were are we going now"

"Cafeteria" Seifer answered "See if I can find Leonhart, plus its almost lunch time."

When the arrived in the cafeteria of Balamb Garden, Rinoa was astounded at how busy it was, and was starting to get an idea of just how big of an establishment this place was. There were crowds of people sitting around closely packed together tables, chatting and laughing and it was incredibly loud. Not long after they entered the cafeteria Seifer turned to Rinoa and said "Stay here. I'll be back in 5 minutes" and then he started pushing through the crowds shouting "Yo, Raijin"

Rinoa stood there glancing around the cafeteria feeling a little uncomfortable. When people walked past her they'd whisper to their friends "Who is that". Rinoa realised she probably did seem a little strange to everyone else, given that the clothes she had on were still torn and dirty, and her hair was still slightly tangled up.

The cafeteria started filling up and she started becoming more and more nervous especially since it had been over 5 minutes and she had completely lost sight of Seifer.

She kept standing were he had left her, but was regularly being knocked into by people trying to get into the not so orderly queue for food or trying to find their friends. Feeling quite intimidated she took a few steps over to the side of the room, and then she noticed that sitting on a table at the edge of the room by himself was Squall.

'_Wonder why he's all by himself'_ Rinoa thought to her self _'Maybe I should go say hi'_

She wandered over to the table, stood at the edge of it and said "Um, hi"

After a few seconds Squall lifted his head and said "oh, hey"

"I just thought I'd come say hello and um thanks. Again."

Squall shrugged "Forget it. So…you going home?"

"No. I'm actually staying here, in Garden." she said kind of happily. This had never been her original plan. She'd never even heard of Garden, but somehow it seemed like a perfect solution to her problems, and judging by the amount of people around, she thought she'd probably not be lonely too much of the time

"That's pretty good" Squall said. Rinoa was amazed by the way this guy spoke. He wasn't mean or particularly unpleasant he just seemed kind of cold, distant. But she guessed there was someone caring inside, underneath this image he seemed to give out of being a loner.

"I know" she said smiling again "so how come your sitting all by yourself?"

Squall shrugged again "I like being by myself"

Again, Rinoa found this intriguing. One of the things she'd hated most about her old life was how alone she was. She didn't have too many friends because of her circumstances and she felt like she was going insane trying to cope alone. She sat down at the table. "Well tough" she gave a little giggle "Because I'm sitting here now! Well at least until I find Seifer. She saw Squall look up sharply "Seifer?"

"Yep. He's kind of showing me around and stuff for the next few days."

"Well lucky you" Squall said slightly sarcastically.

This is the first time Rinoa had heard him speak with any real emotion.

"You know him?" she asked curiously

"Oh yeh. I know him. He's an idiot. You…."

But Squall was interrupted by a loud voice yelling "Yo, new girl" Rinoa turned round and saw Seifer striding across the room towards her. "I though I told you to stay over there" he said as he reached the table

"Sorry. I just came to say hi to Squall"

Seifer glanced down at Squall "You two know each other then?"

"Squall saved my life. He's kind of the one who brought me here" Rinoa answered

"Aww how sweet. Our Squall does love to be a hero. Don't you Squall" Seifer said with a sarcastic laugh. There was very obviously something between these guys, as they clearly were not friends- and it was strangely intriguing to Rinoa.

Rinoa saw Squall glare at Seifer, start to say something, then stop. He simply stood up and pushed his chair under the table "I'm gonna go"

"Bye bye." Seifer laughed "Oh and don't skip out on training tomorrow . I'm just dying to kick your ass"


	4. thinking it all over

**Disclaimer:**lets do this crazy dance once more. i dont own ff8 dances

**Note:**well heres a new chapter, this time rinoa pov. Am glad some people are liking the story. thanks to r, draven nightly and kitcatpadewac for reading and reviewing hope you guys still like were its going. And thanks to wayne for all his help with this part of the story. enjoy y'all xx

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The bright sunshine leaking in through the gaps in the blinds woke Rinoa early the next morning. Opening her eyes she had a temporary moment of panic, were she forgot where she was as she glanced around the unfamiliar room. But after a few seconds her brain woke up and she remembered. She was in Balamb garden. Pulling the covers up around her she realised it was really the first chance she'd had to think everything over. She blinked up at the ceiling the events of the past few days running through her mind. She'd finally gotten up the confidence-not to mention the money- to run away and gotten on a train to Balamb. _'Didn't turn out to well though'_ she thought to herself as she remembered how she'd gotten off of the train and somehow ended up in a forest. _'still no idea how that happened'_

She thought back to pushing her way confusedly through all the trees and how she could swear she heard footsteps behind her. Then she was grabbed and she remembered how these 4 guys had pushed her around, took all her stuff, her bags and clothes, all her money, everything out of her pockets and even pulled the rings off her fingers. Rinoa reached up and touched her neck. They'd taken her chain too. She didn't actually remember them taking that- she'd tried particularly hard to hold onto it, but by the looks of things she failed. That was the worst thing she'd lost. Everything, her clothes and the rest of her jewellery could be replaced…everything except that necklace. It was her mothers ring, and when her mother died 2 years ago she had given the ring to Rinoa, but it was too big so she put it on a chain and for the two years since then she hadn't taken it off. But now it was gone. _'I can't believe it' _she thought sadly. Thinking about it made her want to cry and she swung her thoughts back to what else had happened. She had given the people who grabbed her everything she had but they still refused to let her go because -as she remembered one of them saying- "they were going to have some fun". Rinoa shuddered as she thought of that moment, and how terrified she'd been. She had pretty much figured that these people were either kill her or just plain abuse her. She had no choice but to try and run. She thought back to how hard at had been to stay focused and steady running while she was petrified, blinded by tears and being chased by two of these guys. Then she had been saved and her thoughts drifted to the person who had saved her.

'_Squall'_ she thought to herself _'I owe him my life. But he's kind of…strange. Kind of quiet and distant. Cute though. No damn it Rinoa focus!' _She thought back to when he had been trying to get information out of her. _'He seemed so serious. Standing arms crossed over his chest, serious tone of voice, serious expression. He seemed so …detached'_ But Rinoa remembered how she thought she had seen a flicker of concern in him, something in his icy blue eyes that he hid behind his long brown fringe. '_Damn it focus!!'_ she scolded herself again when she realised she'd spent the last few seconds thinking about Squalls fringe.

She got her thoughts back on the track of recounting the events that her lead her up to this moment, just so she had them all down straight in her head, as the whole thing had been a little strange. She thought about meeting the Doctor and Cid and how she'd decided to stay at Garden, as it seemed pretty cool and there were a lot of other people her age there. And once again her thoughts drifted, this time to Seifer. She couldn't help a huge smile breaking across her face when she though of Seifer. She'd spent most of yesterday been shown around Garden by Seifer, well shown around in the respect that she had followed him all day as he went about his business pretending like she wasn't there most of the time.

'_He's just so confident and attractive and……attractive" _she though to herself with a little giggle. As the day had gone on yesterday, she'd only found herself becoming more and more attracted to Seifer. Being around him all day, she had discovered he was actually quite smart, funny and very popular. Everyone seemed to know who he was. A lot of the other students seemed to like him and those who didn't seemed not to because they were intimidated by him _'maybe because he's on the disciplinary committee'_ she thought to herself. Last night she had had the privilege of meeting Fujin and Raijin, Seifers closet friends who made up the disciplinary committee with him, and joining them as they stormed around garden making sure no students were violating the curfew. But she knew there was something else, another thing about Seifer that intimidated people a little, something that Rinoa found quite thrilling. He had an edge. _'He's kind of……a bad boy' _she thought to herself feeling a little school -girl-crush-ish . Rinoa had always had a thing for Seifers type. Not being to confident in her self she found people like Seifer who had so much confidence amazing. _Plus I had such a strict father, with so many rules it's not surprising the rule breaking bad ass type seems so cool' _As she was pondering this there was a knock on the door that pulled her out of her thoughts. She jumped out of bed and opened the door. On the other side she saw a young brunette girl about her age smiling brightly at her.

"Morning" the girl said cheerily "I'm Selphie"

"Hey. I'm Rinoa"

"Well see, I was thinking. I mean you just got here right? So I thought maybe you might need to borrow some clothes and stuff as you don't have any of your own stuff" She handed Rinoa a pile of folded clothes and some shampoo and toiletries. Rinoa was struck by the kindness of this girl. She seemed so warm and friendly.

"Wow! Thank you. Um you want to come in?" Rinoa asked thinking it might be good to make as many friends as possible.

"Sure!" the girl beamed stepping into the room. "Thanks. Oh by the way…" she gestured to the pile of clothes "I didn't know what your favourite colour was so I brought lots of colours for you. You can borrow as much stuff as you like. But I was thinking it would be totally fun to go shopping one day!"

Rinoa was starting to really like this girl already. And she liked shopping "yeh. That would be cool"

"So" Selphie said "have you decided what you want to study here. Are you gonna become a SeeD cadet?"

"Train to fight? Uh-uh. I don't think so. I'm not exactly tough. What do you do?"

"Well I'm a SeeD cadet!"

Rinoa was taken aback. This girl was shorter than her-and Rinoa was pretty short herself- and was so thin and so smiley that Rinoa could just not have guessed she was a trained fighter. Almost as if she were reading Rinoas thoughts, Selphie laughed "tee-hee. Don't worry I get that a lot. I don't look like your average warrior."

"Well it's definitely not for me" Rinoa said "I was thinking maybe being a med student, but I don't really know"

"Well I'm sure Cid will give you plenty of time to decide. But you like it so far?"

Rinoa nodded enthusiastically "It's really cool. And everyone's really really nice"

"Oh yeh. I saw you yesterday with Seifer. Is he showing you around?"

"yeh. He seems cool"

Selphie gave a nod and a knowing little smile

"I met other cool people too. I mean I met um Fujin and Raijin and you of course and that guy Squall"

Selphie nodded "well I'm kind of new here. So I don't know everyone too well. Then again Seifers kind of hard to miss. Well I'd better get to class.By the way, my rooms 212 if you ever feel like chatting. Well bye"

"Bye. And thanks for the stuff" Rinoa said as she shut the door behind the girl. She couldn't help but smile, she was really liking it so far here.

She glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was 10.15am. She was supposed to be meeting Seifer at 12 by the directory. She decided that since Seifer had shown her the basic way around garden yesterday she would go for a little wander before she met him. But first she took all the toiletries Selphie had given her, and headed for a nice long shower…..

Rinoa was lost. After she'd showered and put on some of the clean clothes Selphie had lent her she'd gone for that little walk around garden and ended up very very lost.

The hallways were practically empty, Rinoa remembered Seifer telling her he had class this morning so she figured that's were most people were. Rinoa was starting to get pretty scared. The Hallways hadn't seemed so big yesterday.

"Damn it" she muttered to herself. She stood in the hallways feeling helpless, when she heard footsteps. She turned around and saw a person walking towards her. When she saw who it was her heart did a tiny jump. It was Squall. She seemed to keep bumping into him for some reason. Not that that particularly bothered her. She kind of liked him. _'There's definitely something about him. It's probably the fringe'_ she told herself. "Hey Squall!!" she called out running over to him……………..

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more coming soon. keep reading and reviewing xx


	5. The Seifer Squall divide

**Disclaimer:** i dont own final fantasy 8. I do however own pictures of crazy space couple and cute chibi couple. but they are not in this story so thats completely irrelevent. but i dont own 8.

**Note:**Well yet more story. Am glad i got some response to this story because i was worried noone would like it. But it turned out oay. So many many thanks to Renegade seraph, rinnyheartillyizawesome, r, lilnaych and draven nightly for your support and reviews. and as always my thanks to wayne for everything and hannah for being my pkot bunny/creative consultant lol. i love ya girl!! Well hope everyone enjoys the chapter. more coming soon

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Squall was making his way to the training centre for one of his daily training sessions when he saw someone standing in the corridor glancing around. As he got closer and heard the person call out "Hey Squall" he knew exactly who it was.

'_Rinoa. Why is she here?'_

"Oh my, thank god" Rinoa said as she ran over to him.

"What?" Squall asked her

"I'm…I'm lost" she said with a little pout

'_Why do I keep running into this girl all the time' _Squall thought to himself. It wasn't that he didn't like her, it was just that every time he did run into her she seemed to occupy his thoughts for at least an hour afterwards. There was just something about her that made her stick in his head. Of course, he told himself it was nothing. He put it down to the fact that he had saved her life, and she was the first person he'd ever really helped. He had been in lots of fights before but he had never fought for some ones life or safety like he had when he'd met this girl.

"Lost?" he asked her

"Yep. I'm supposed to be meeting Seifer in like 5 minutes at the directory, but I got lost and have no clue how to get there! Can you help me?"

Squall sighed "Fine, I'll take you there"

Rinoa smiled "ooh thank you!!!!"

Squall couldn't help but notice that she really did have a pretty smile.

"Ok. So right or left?" she asked

"Either" Squall said and Rinoa just looked at him confusedly.

"It's a circular corridor. You can go either way"

Rinoa tilted her head to one side "Seriously??" then she laughed a little "How could I not notice that?"

Squall was tempted to laugh himself, a very rare thing. "I actually don't know" he said with a slight smile. Squall couldn't help but notice how different the girl looked from when he had first seen her. Her hair was now long and smooth, her face clean and her skin bright although some of the cuts were still visible, and she was wearing new clean clothes. As they walked down the corridor Squall didn't know exactly what to say, but to avoid the awkward silence he said "You settling in okay?"

She nodded "Oh yeh. Seifers been showing me around, well kind of, although I think I'm a little in his way. But anyway, Cid gave me a room and this morning I met this really nice girl Selphie and she lent me some clothes. She reached out and touched the bottom of her skirt "of course she's a little shorter than me, and I'm guessing this skirt was on the short side on her, so in future I'm thinking the skirts should be a lil longer"

Squall glanced down at the dark blue skirt she was wearing. '_Damn it' _he thought to himself '_why did she have to say that, now I cant stop looking at her skirt…and it really is kind of short..'_

"I think I should do some shopping" she said, and Squall just nodded '_Damn it. Stop looking at her skirt!!'_ he thought

Once Squall got her to the directory he was determined to just turn around and head back to the training centre, but then he remembered something. Turning back to Rinoa he said "Oh, by the way, did you lose a necklace, the other night when…I found you"

The girl nodded and looked a little sad "Yeh"

Squall reached into his pocket and pulled out the silver chain. He had found it in his pocket earlier in the morning. He held the chain up in the air and watched as for some reason Rinoas face lit up completely.

"You found it!!!" she squealed jumping up and down

'_ok this girl really loves her necklace'_ Squall thought. He handed it over to her, and she clenched it tightly in her hand as if she really cherished it. But it was what she did next that shocked Squall the most. She reached out, threw her arms around him!

"Thank you, so much" she said hugging him.

'_What the hell?…this is weird'_ Squall thought

"Um, okay it's no problem" he said, feeling very uncomfortable being hugged by this girl. Squall was NOT a hugging person. At that moment, as he tried to shake Rinoa off, he looked up and saw Seifer leaning against a wall, observing them with a strange smile on his face. Then he started walking over to them. Luckily, by the time he reached them, Rinoa had stopped hugging Squall.

"Hey Seifer" Rinoa smiled. There was just something in her voice that indicated to Squall that she had joined the hordes of girls in Garden who had a thing for Seifer.

"Be with you in a sec" Seifer said to her. "Squall can I have a word?"

'_Oh great'_ Squall thought '_What's this going to be. It's not like Seifer ever has anything good to say…'_

Rinoa stepped aside to give them some privacy.

"What was that?" Seifer laughed quietly to Squall

"What was what?" Squall said, already frustrated by Seifer

"That little scene just then…."

"It was nothing" Squall said immediately

"You got a thing for her?" Seifer asked with a little Seifer grin

"No!" Squall snapped _'I don't need Seifer winding me up anymore than he always does. Besides I don't have a thing for her. That's…it's crazy'_

"See I think you do" Seifer said tauntingly "I do keep seeing you talking to her…."

"Whatever" Squall said trying not to rise to the occasion

Seifer laughed smugly "you so want her. Not that I blame you, she's pretty."

"Whatever" Squall repeated

"So you up for some training lover boy?"

"Fine. Whatever" Squall said _' I'd quite like to kick your ass right now'_ he added in his head

"oh good" Seifer said with another grin. Then he turned to Rinoa "Hey, you up for seeing some training?"………………………….

A few minutes later Squall and Seifer were standing in the training centre, and a large amount of Garden students had gathered around them. Rinoa, who was standing with Fujin and Raijin were Seifer had left her asked "If there just training, why are there so many people here?"

"Seifer and Squall, they don't see eye to eye ya know" Raijin said "there always at each others throats so it's kind of like a show. Every ones on one side or the other."

Seifer stood opposite Squall and drew his gun blade. They began training, swinging and dodging blows. Being the only two gun blade specialists in Garden, Squall and Seifer regularly trained against each other, so it was not too challenging for either of them.

"So" Seifer said between swings of his blade "You really don't have a thing for her?"

"I told you, no" Squall said angrily dodging Seifers blade _'Why won't he let this go?'_

"See I think that you really do"

Squall swung his blade with extra force in Seifers direction, but Seifer blocked it with his own blade. "Your so wrong" Squall snapped

"Really. Then why are you getting so mad about it?"

"Because you're a jerk"

Seifer ducked down and swung his blade at knee level, but Squall quickly stepped back avoiding any damage.

Rinoa was amazed at how well these two young men fought. It was all so perfectly skilled and timed it almost looked like a dance.

Seifer and Squall continued to train, but they were equally and matched and neither seemed to be able to get the upper ground.

"See, I know you like her" Seifer said "but I think she's into me. Sorry Squall"

"like I care"

"Well you wont care if I ask her out then"

Squall was caught slightly off guard by that comment and let his defence down for a second. As soon as he did he felt the handle of Seifers gun blade jam into his side and he dropped to the floor

'_damn!!!'_

Half the students gathered gasped while the other half cheered. There seemed to be a serious Seifer-Squall divide amongst them.

"that's it ya know!!! Go on Seifer!!" Squall heard Raijin yell. He glanced over to were he was standing at the edge of the training area with all the other students and saw Rinoa next to him, looking over at Seifer with admiration and sheer attraction. He looked up at Seifer and saw him wink at her.

'_No way, he aint getting this over me'_ Squall thought to himself as he rammed his foot into Seifers shin, catching him off guard and causing him to drop to the ground too.

This time everyone in the room gasped. This fight was getting good!

"you know" Seifer said sounding slightly angry, as he and squall both pushed themselves off the ground "I think I will take her out"

"So" Squall said dodging Seifers blade again "Really you're the one with the thing for her?"

"Nah,I'd wager that's still you. but I reckon a girl like that'd be pretty fun. She's all new and scared and looking for a hero, a protector" he laughed with another effortless swing of his blade

"Oh and that's you?" Squall said sarcastically as his blade clashed with Seifers above their heads

"No, but she thinks I am. She really wants me. And that means she'll probably be pretty easy!!"

It was about then that Squall snapped. He had had enough of Seifer and had enough of being wound up constantly. He had no idea why this one comment made him so mad, and it was probably just Seifer in general, but Squall badly wanted to shut him up. With all his force Squall drew his blade quickly upwards, the tip coming into contact with Seifers face. The blade caused a deep cut across Seifers nose which blood started to trickle from. Squall was slightly taken aback, he hadn't intended to do any serious harm. Obviously surprised, Seifer staggered backwards and dropped to the floor, clasping his hand over his nose

"What the fuck Squall??!" he cried.

A few people automatically ran over to Seifer to see if he was okay, and amongst these people were Fujin, Raijin and Rinoa who dropped down to her knees and squealed "oh my god, Seifer are you alright?"

She glanced up at Squall, and he saw something in her eyes. It was a mix of anger, dislike and confusion.

Seifer pushed the people away "I'm fine" he hissed. He jumped up quickly, rose his blade in the air and drew it downwards across Squalls face inflicting a similar kind of wound that Squall had given him. Blood splashed out onto Squalls face and at that moment most of the garden students ran into the fight, half restraining Seifer, the rest restraining Squall. An instructor pushing his way through the crowd yelled

"that's enough, both of you. You should be ashamed.! Both go to the infirmary and then straight to Cids office. RIGHT NOW!!!!!"

Seifer stormed over to talk to Fujin, Raijin and Rinoa. When Squall looked over he saw Raijin shooting him evil looks, and Rinoa looking all concernedly at Seifer.

Squall decided to ignore this. He wiped the blood off his face and walked past them, heading for the door. But at the last minute as he walked past, Seifer reached out and grabbed him by the arm and hissed in his ear.

"This is so not over"

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indeed Seifer it is not! there are many more chapters to come!!! next chapter is called 'the boyfriend'


	6. the boyfriend

**Note: i dont own 8. and thanks to the usual crowd xx more coming soon from this story. review n let me know what you think **

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Rinoa stood outside the infirmary with Fujin and Raijin waiting for Seifer to come out.

"Rage" was all Fujin said. Rinoa was beginning to wonder why she always spoke in only one or two words.

"Seifer had better be all right ya know" Rajin said.

"I wonder why Squall would do that?" Rinoa asked. She was still very very confused. She had never had guessed Squall to be the particularly violent type. He had always seemed quiet and reserved. But after seeing what he had done to Seifer, Rinoa had to wonder about him. What he'd done was pretty violent and appeared to be unprovoked and wholly unnecessary.

"Squall's always been jealous of Seifer, ya know. He hates him. He does whatever he can to make Seifers life difficult"

"Seriously?" she asked, surprised "he seemed so kind of …nice"

"He seems that way ya know. But its all an act. He's pretty nasty under it all. Always trynna mess things up for Seifer. But he went to far this time. Glad Seifer got his revenge ya know"

Rinoa could hardly believe it all. This guy who had saved her life and seemed like a pretty good guy and pretty heroic was actually not a good person at all. It still seemed strange to her though as she remembered all her conversation with him and he really had seemed decent. But she kept hearing otherwise….

At that moment Seifer came strolling out of the infirmary towards them. He had a scar now running across the top of his nose and down just below his eye, but Rinoa thought it suited him _'It makes him look kind of…tough' _she thought

"Are you okay" she asked him, but he just waved his hand at her and turned to Fujin and Raijin

"Rage" Fujin said again

"Don't worry yeah? He wont get away with this"

The door in the corridor opened again and Squall came out and started walking towards them. Rinoa noticed that Squall had a scar mirroring Seifers only Squalls was mostly hidden behind his longer hair, were as Seifers was noticeable.

At that point Seifer turned to Rinoa and said "you know, I was thinking, you and me should totally go out sometime"

Rinoas heart jumped in her chest _'Is he asking me out……on a date???'_

Rinoa tried to control the excitement in her voice "Yeh, sure. That would be great"

"Tonight"

Rinoa nodded happily _'Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god Seifer just asked me out TONIGHT!'_

"ok, then it's a date" Seifer said with a grin, just as Squall walked past. He glanced briefly at them and then muttered something under his breath that Rinoa didn't quite catch before he carried on walking straight past them.

'_A date with Seifer…this is gonna be the best night ever!!!!!'_ ….

A few minutes later Rinoa stood knocking on door 212.She really had to share her excitement with someone and really Selphie was the only person she knew. Rinoa was disappointed when she got no response but as she turned to leave she saw Selphie walking towards her chatting to a blonde guy with a distinctive Tattoo on his face.

"Ohhh hey Rinoa" Selphie said as she saw her "oh by the way this is my friend Zell"

The blonde guy waved "hey"

"Hey" Rinoa said "Listen Selphie do you have anything I could borrow, that's kind of fancy…for like a date."

"Ooooh whose your date with?" Selphie Squealed

"Seifer!"

"Seifer Almasy?" The blonde guy scoffed "poor you"

"What, what do you mean?"

"That guy is a grade A jerk. Man do I hate him, he's always trying to push me around…"

"Oooh" Selphie said suddenly "did you hear about that thing in the training centre, with him and Squall"

"I was there" Rinoa told her "it was crazy"

"yeh, I heard" Zell gave a little sniff "well trust Seifer to do something like that!"

Rinoa was becoming a little annoyed by this guys Seifer-bashing. _'It's so just jealousy'_

"Actually, it wasn't even Seifers fault, Squall started it" she said defensively

Selphie frowned "Those two really don't get on do they? Oh well lets find you something for your date"

And a few hours and several hundred outfits later Rinoa was ready for her date.

The next morning Rinoa was up bright and early and feeling very cheery. She was still thinking about her date last night. She headed into the bathroom and picked up her brush and started smoothing down her dark hair. And she couldn't help but grin into the mirror.

'_He is just so amazing!!! Could he be anymore perfect?'_

Seifer certainly seemed to have his ways of wowing the ladies. Her mind kept wandering back to her date last night……..

He had taken her out for a casual dinner and a drink and Rinoa couldn't help but be amazed by how mature and…smooth Seifer was. She just loved his calm laid back attitude. Most of the date he had spent simply nodding along to whatever Rinoa was saying while glancing around the room. But Rinoa knew he was really listening. She supposed he just wanted to keep his cool, 'bad boy', casual attitude up, but deep inside she could see a very caring soul.

But Rinoa as she brushed her hair couldn't help thinking about the end of their date….

On their way into garden who else did they bump into, but Squall.

"Evening Squall" Seifer said when he saw him

"Come on, just leave it" She nudged Seifer. She didn't want a fight to break out and ruin her perfect evening.

"I'm just being friendly" Seifer said with a grin. It was at that point Rinoa could tell Seifer was going to try and wind Squall up. '_then again maybe he deserves it after what he did'_

"So did you have a nice evening?" Seifer asked insincerely "We did"

"I bet you did" Squall said before walking off

"See, no matter hoe hard I try that guy just does not like me"

"Why is that?" Rinoa couldn't help asking

"He's just…anti-social. He hates me and its not like I ever did anything to him. He just hates me. He hates everyone really"

"I thought he seemed okay…"

"Okay? Were you even there earlier? He attacked me!"

At that moment Rinoa was snapped back to the present by a knocking at her door. Opening it she saw Selphie standing there smiley as ever.

"How was your date?" She asked excitedly clapping her hands together

"it was….great!!"

On Selphies insistence, she then recounted the details of the date. But for some reason she found her self deciding to leave out the part about Squall. Probably because it still confused her. No matter what she heard from Seifer and others, she couldn't help thinking about what she had seen in Squall the first time she'd really met him, that sense of genuine decency hiding behind his icy eyes, those stormy, intense blue eyes…. Rinoa realised at that point she had let her thoughts wander and was staring into space while Selphie was talking. She only caught the last sentence of what Selphie was saying which was something to do with breakfast. A few seconds later she found herself on her way to the cafeteria with Selphie

"Oooooh, maybe Seifer will be there!" Selphie said with a huge grin

The cafeteria was the emptiest Rinoa had ever seen it. It was only about half full and half the people who were there seemed to be half asleep. But out of the people who were there, Rinoa was only very happy when she spotted Seifer.

"Heeey" She called running over to him

"Hey darling. You sleep okay" he said in a surprisingly warm tone for Seifer

"Yup" Rinoa nodded as he slung his arm around her waist.

"So we going out again later"

"yeh, I mean if you want to" Rinoa said

"Of course" Seifer said and then he bent down slightly and kissed Rinoa on the lips, his tongue slipping between them and brushing against her own. She was caught breathless and surprised by this. It felt so passionate to her. She'd never been kissed that like that before but she was certainly starting to like it! Really like it! She loved the closeness she felt and she loved the feeling of Seifer holding her, one hand on her back and the other running through the ends of her hair. She almost completely forget she was standing in the middle of a cafeteria

After sometime, Seifer pulled away from the kiss but Rinoa just stayed frozen there in happy-trance like state

"So pick you up a bit later?" he said with a wink before strolling away.

But Rinoa still stood there all dazed, untill a voice broke into her thoughts

"you two should really invest in a room" Zell said as he strolled on by. He carried on walking past her and about a second later she heard him say "Hey Squall"

She turned around and noticed that Squall was sitting only one table away from her. He was glancing up at her every few seconds before looking back down at whatever he was reading And Rinoa noticed he was tapping his fingers in an irritated way. He had obviously seen the whole thing with her and Seifer. Rinoa could swear that there was a look, a shadow, of something in his eyes, hiding behind that long chestnut fringe. Something that looked a little like irritation and maybe even disappointment? But Rinoa couldn't read anything from him, nothing definite. But she decided not to get caught up with it. It was early and she had already had an amazing day

-she had a fantastic new boyfriend. As she turned to look for Selphie she glanced down at Squall who at the same time glanced up at her and there eyes met. Rinoa for some reason felt a strange tingle go through her body when his eyes met herrs. There was just something about those eyes….


	7. the truth in his thoughts

**Disclaimer:** Dont own 8 or anything to do with it. if anyone wants to sell me the rights to 8, well all feel free!

**Note:** well another chapter of love triangles and tribulations for our main guys. there is a lot of thought in this chapter so thought is always _'in itallics'_

As usual thanks to y'all who reviewed, Lilnaych, ayato, Over the limit, renegade seraph, jesh18, rinnyheartillyizawesome and XxPhoenixbladexX i love y'all. peace and love to everyone and enjoy the chapter, more coming very very soon

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Squall was sitting in the cafeteria, trying to get his coffee to cool down so he could finish it soon and avoid the morning rush. Squall and Zell always went to the cafeteria early; Zell so he could ensure getting himself a huge plate of hot dogs, and Squall because he hated how the crowded the cafeteria got after 9Am. Unfortunately today it was starting to fill up early. Of course, lately, Squall had another reason for wanting to leave the cafeteria early and that was Rinoa and Seifer. Every morning for the past week they had been in the cafeteria acting all loved up and close. And Squall hated it, only he couldn't figure out why it bothered him so much. He had completely ruled out the idea that it was because he felt anything for Rinoa because he had convinced himself that he didn't. He had decided that the reason he couldn't seem to stop thinking about her had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with…well he didn't know what.

'_But it's not attraction'_ he told himself _'I'm not attracted to her. I'm just…it's just that I see her a lot and …besides I can't afford to get distracted now, SeeD exam is coming up soon, and I need to be focused, plus…well she's with Seifer anyway, God only knows why but..'_

"YO! Earth to Squall, do you read me?" Zell was saying loudly, waving his hands in front of Squalls face

"What?" Squall said finally coming out of his own thoughts

"Are you stoned or something?" Zell asked raising his eyebrow in a comical way.

"Whatever"

It was then that Seifer came strolling into the cafeteria , Rinoa trailing behind him with one of those smiles on her face..

"Oh great" Squall muttered to himself noticing that Seifer was in fact heading straight for the table he was sat at.

"What does he want" Zell asked suspiciously noticing Seifer approaching them "He's always trouble"

Squall shrugged _'Probably come to wind me up some more' _he thought

"Hey you guys" Rinoa said as her and Seifer reached the table

"Hi Rinoa" Zell said with a smile. Squall chose to say nothing and continued to stare into his coffee mug

"Y'know" Rinoa said "It's got kind of packed in here already, you mind if we sit with you guys?"

Zell and Squall exchanged glances.

"Well actually…" Zell began but Seifer interrupted, saying "Thanks you two" and pulling out one of the chairs.

Squall kept his eyes down, cursing his coffee for still being too hot too finish. The quicker he finished, the quicker he could get away from Seifer.

" I'll go get us some coffee yeh?" Seifer said kissing Rinoa on the cheek

"Ew" Zell shuddered when Seifer was out of hearing range "Seriously. People are trying to eat"

"Ha Ha" Rinoa said sarcastically

"Still can't believe your with Seifer" Zell started "he's so…"

"Amazing?" Rinoa finished in a dreamy voice. Squall glanced up at her and wondered how she could be so naïve, how she could not see the real Seifer, the one who was not as good and nice as he was pretending to be.

"Wouldn't be my choice of word" Squall said quickly looking down again

"What?" Rinoa asked kind of sharply

"Nothing"

Squall got the sense she was about to say something else, but Seifer appeared again placing two cups of coffee on the table. "Here you go darlin'" Seifer said sitting down next to Rinoa

"Thank you" Rinoa said with a smile and a little giggle." So what are we gonna do today"

"Ooh sorry princess, 'fraid I'm busy today. Maybe you could go out with like Selphie or someone"

Rinoa looked saddened "Alright, but it wont be as much fun without you"

Squall rolled his eyes _'How is she so fooled by him? Can't she see all of this is fake?'_

"Yeh, I know. My day will probably suck too without you" Seifer said in a tone that both Zell and Squall instantly recognised as being fake. It annoyed Squall that seifer was so definitely messing with Rinoa, and she'd probably end up broken hearted because of it. Seifer was acting like someone totally different to who he really was, only Rinoa couldn't see it. '_is he really doing all of this just because he thinks he can get to me with it?_' Squall thought

"I'm going to see you tonight though ?" Rinoa asked

"Actually I'm not so sure" Seifer sighed "I think I've got some stuff that needs doing"

"That Sucks"

"I know" Seifer said in that same fake tone "but think how much we can look forward to tomorrow". He leant across the table and took her face in his hands and then started kissing her.

"I'm out of here" Squall said standing up quickly and walking away from the table and out of the room. He walked out into the corridor and sat down at the bench at the end placing his head in his hands.

'_Why the hell is this getting to me so much?' _he asked himself '_why do I even care about Seifer and Rinoa?'_

Glancing up he saw Zell running down the corridor towards him

"Yo Squall what's up?"

"Nothing"

There is something. Is it Seifer, 'cause he's bugging me too. What the hell is he acting like? It's like we've got alternate universe Seifer or something"

"Whatever" Squall said, as was his trademark, "Seifers a jerk"

"I know that!" Zell exclaimed "but he's acting totally different and I don't even get it"

"He's playing Rinoa. He's acting nice and like he cares about her when he really doesn't" Squall said anger creeping into his voice "Which is really wrong, especially since she's new and everything. Like I said, Seifers a jerk"

"Oooooh" Zell said knowingly "I See"

"See what" Squall asked

"You…have a thing for Rinoa"

"I do not" Squall said automatically _'Why does everyone keep saying that too me. Seifer, now Zell…'_

"Yes you do, you really do" Zell grinned

"No I don't"

"Ha! yes you do!"

"No I bloody well don't !!!!"

" Ok" Zell sighed "fine you don't." he lowered his voice "except you do"

"Whatever. I don't have a thing for her okay. Just let it go"

"Well then why do you get so wound up about her and Seifer then"

"Because Seifer is using her and I think that's wrong. He's only with her because he thinks I like her, which I don't, and he thinks he can bug my by dating her."

"Yep. You like her then" Zell said firmly

"No, I DO NOT" Squall said turning and storming away down the corridor

'_It's completely ridiculous' _Squall thought angrily as he walked away _'I don't have a thing for her…I mean she's pretty and all but that doesn't mean I like her. But damn did I hate seeing her kiss seifer like that…'._ Suddenly Squall began to wonder if he had been trying just then to convince Zell or himself._ 'But it doesn't mean I like her…except I think that I actually…kind of do'_

Squall sat down on the bench outside the Library. '_ Damn it. How? How did I let myself fall for her even a little? I should have known better. I don't even know what it is about her. She's pretty and sweet, but there's something else. God, I can't stop thinking about the first time I met her, even then I couldn't place what it was about her. She just seems so, vulnerable, she's just someone you want to protect. She doesn't deserve what Seifer is doing either. But it's not even like I can say anything to her, there's no way she'd believe me. Plus I can't go and say that Seifer is using her to get at me, then she'll know I like her. Damn how'd this get so complicated…'_

Before he realised it, he had become so lost in his own thought that nearly half an hour had passed. Given that training was the thing he found to be most therapeutic, he decided take a trip into the training centre.

He worked his way around the circular battlefield and tried to keep Rinoa and Seifer out of his head, but he didn't do too well; he just couldn't seem to unoccupied his mind.

He fought through enemy after enemy and decided to take a short breather about half way around the training centre. He rested against a large log just outside the secret area and was just about to head back off when he heard voices coming form the secret area. _'that's kind of odd' _he thought to himself '_people usually come here after curfew, not in the day'. _But he thought nothing much of it until he heard the male voice speak again-it was so familiar.

"come on" the familiar voice said "No one is going to find out".

Why was the voice so familiar?

Not being able to resist the urge to do so, Squall stuck his head around the corner of the entrance to the little area and he couldn't quite believe what he saw.

Standing there, was Seifer, passionately kissing a girl with long blonde hair…..

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Seifer is such a bitch!!! well watch this space for an update soon xx


	8. secrets, silence and rain

**Disclaimer:** i dont own ff8, or any of the characters. i want to though. i'd like to own Squall even if it was just for one day. there are a lot of things i could get up too in THAT day.hahaha... but were were we? ah yes. dont own ff8.

**Note:**Hey y'all i am sorry i took a little while with this chapter i've been a little busyer than i expected but well here it is. all my love and thanks to my reviewers renegade seraph, jesh18,lilnaych and XxphoenixbladexX. i really value your suypport. and am glad how everyone commented on what an ass seifer is, i was trying to get people to think that way in this story and he so is. so lets see what will he do this chapter because, well he continues to be an ass. and will Squall actually do anything read on the answers lie within heheheh...hope you enjoy it y'all peace and light xx

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…..Squall couldn't believe it. He was seriously in shock. Seifer had stooped pretty low in his time, but this, this was low even for him. Squall had to take a few moments to get it all straight in his head. Not only was Seifer pretending he liked Rinoa in an attempt to get back at Squall, he was also seeing someone else behind her back. Squall kept watching as the blonde girl pulled away and looked into Seifers eyes and he was propelled into a state of even deeper confusion. He recognised the young woman. He knew her well, it was none other than his and Seifers instructor-Instructor Trepe!

Squall had no idea what to do. Had it been Seifer fooling around with any random Garden student then Squall probably would have said something…but Seifer and an instructor? That was way more complicated for everyone. In the moment he decided it best to just leave for now, but he was determined to say something to Seifer later on. As he walked back to the entrance of the training centre he felt pretty damn angry.

'_Rinoa's a nice girl. She doesn't deserve this. She's been through enough.'_

Squall stopped outside the training centre and waited in the corridor. About twenty minutes later Seifer came strolling past, whistling to himself.

"Yo Squall" he said with a nod

"I want to talk to you" Squall said bluntly

"I'm flattered" Seifer grinned "But I have nothing to say to you"

"Well I have a lot to say to you". Squall glanced around to make sure there was no one too near by that could overhear the conversation "what the hell do you think your doing?"

"well. I was walking, and now what I think I'm doing is being asked what I think I'm doing" Seifer said in his infuriating tone of voice

"Stop messing around Seifer" Squall said trying to control his temper "I know about you…and instructor Trepe, fooling around. And behind Rinoa's back. Do you know how many ways that's wrong"

"Oooh hold on….I don't care"

Squall was becoming increasingly annoyed with Seifer and was imagining how much trouble he'd get in for taking his gun blade and stabbing Seifer with it. "You're a jackass Seifer. Not only is it against the rules to fool around with Instructors, you actually have a girlfriend."

Seifer laughed "What Rinoa? I don't think so."

"Are you seriously trying to tell me that you really are going out with her just to piss me off. You're sick"

"But it's working isn't it?" Seifer grinned

"And don't you care at all about how she feels?"

"Nope" Seifer said casually

"You really are unbelievable"

"Squall, say what you want. I really don't care"

"Will you care if I tell Cid. Or Rinoa?" Squall snapped

"you're not going to tell anyone about me and Quistis and we both know it. There's no way your going to risk getting involved. You know you could get in too much trouble for saying things like that"

Squall knew that Seifer was right, if he told Cid then this could turn into something massive. "I will tell Rinoa, I wont tell her who it was you were with but I will tell her"

Seifer shrugged "Fine, do it. I mean it's a little harsh after everything she's been through, but fine. I mean its not like she'd believe you anyway. Even if you tell her, she'd still keep hanging around, I wouldn't have to say much to get her on my side, I've got that chick wrapped right round my finger, she's so freaking blind"

And once again, Squall snapped and found himself punching Seifer in the face!! Hard.

"Holy hell!!" Seifer cried out as blood trickled down his face "You're psychotic!"

The whole incident, the latter part of which was witnessed by a member of Garden staff, landed Squall in the headmasters office again.

"I must say Squall, I am concerned" the headmaster frowned "it's been twice in two weeks I've had to pull you in here for violent behaviour, it's not like you"

"It's not me…it's Seifer he's…he's provoking me"

"Excuses Squall. You should know better than to retaliate"

"But…you know what, forget it" Squall mumbled

"I hope whatever is going on with you squall sorts itself out soon. You really do have promise, but I don't want you to ruin that by not being able to control your temper. And you're in detention, for two weeks. After your classes report to the detainment centre for two hours every day. That's all"

Squall said nothing and left the room. He was furious with the whole situation. Once again Seifer had gotten away with everything and Squall had landed all the blame. But he knew there was pretty much nothing he could do. Same with the Rinoa situation. As much as Squall hated to admit it he knew Seifer was right, there was no way Rinoa would believe him, and who knew what kind of things Seifer had been saying to Rinoa about Squall. As much as Squall liked Rinoa, which he had recently discovered was actually a hell of a lot, he had to admit that ever since she came into his life things had gone nothing but downhill………………..

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Rinoa had had an amazing day. She and Selphie had gotten the train over to Timber to do some shopping and have a nice 'girly day' as Selphie called it. As she wandered back to her dorm room, she thought about what Selphie had been telling her about on the way home. Selphie, it turned out, was a member of the Garden Festival Committee and she had told Rinoa about the fundraising Dance. According to Selphie, they decided to throw a very classy, formal ball to Raise funds to really get the committee on it's feet.

'_A dance' _Rinoa thought making her way down the corridors. _'How great does that sound, like a proper dance! I should talk to Seifer about it, I'm sure he'll wanna go. How amazing would that be…'_

But when Rinoa got to her dorm room, her happy thoughts all melted away and her good mood was shattered. Standing outside her door was Seifer, with a scratch across his nose, and the formations of a black eye.

"Oh my god! What happened baby?" Rinoa cried

"Nothing, I'm fine" Seifer said

"You are not fine! What happened?" Rinoa repeated starting to worry

"I'd rather not talk about it"

"Seifer…."

Seifer sighed "Ok, Fine. It was Squall, he punched me. We were just talking, well maybe kind of arguing I'll admit, but he just took something the wrong way I guess and he…punched me. He just snapped"

"That guy is…insane. I'm gonna go say something to him…"

Seifer grabbed Rinoa by the arm as she turned around "Don't it's not worth it"

"But…."

"Forget it" Seifer said firmly to her.

But later that night, she found she couldn't forget it. She couldn't forget any of it. She couldn't stop thinking about everything that had been going on with Squall and Seifer and herself. It had become increasingly clear that Squall hated Seifer and he was certainly the nastier of the two. But as much as Rinoa wished she could, she couldn't deny that there was something about Squall that was very appealing. Aside from the fact that he was unarguably a very good looking guy, there was something else that Rinoa couldn't quite define. He had saved her life, and he originally seemed pretty quiet and respectful and there was just an underlying genuineness that Rinoa had seen since she first laid eyes on him. But then everything that had been going on with him and Seifer…well that was a whole different story. It was as if there were two completely different Squalls. Still incredibly confused, Rinoa closed her eyes and tried to block all the thoughts out so she could get some sleep.

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The next few days, Rinoa seemed to keep finding out that Seifer was otherwise occupied. She felt that it had been a while since she had got to see him properly. After 3 days of walking around Garden doing nothing, she decided she wanted to get out. When Selphie was in class she had noone really to talk to, the only other person she knew was Squall. And she got the suspicion he was avoiding her. She had seen him earlier that morning and when she said hi to him he opened his mouth to say something, but then instead just walked off. Which Rinoa found very very odd. For a while she wondered what it was all about, but then decided Squall was one of those people that just could not be figured out. Later that day She took the train over to Timber again, just as she had done with Selphie and browsed the shops. She had talked to Seifer about the dance that Selphie had mentioned to her, and he had agreed to take her, so she was particularly looking for a dress. Eventually she found one. The perfect dress. But glancing at her watch as she walked out of the store she discovered it was 6.03pm. The train back to Balamb was at Six. And she missed it. After making it to the station, she stood on the platform trying to figure out when the next train would come. Unfortunately it turned out to be at 8, so she sat around in the station thinking about everything and anything until the train came. But mostly she thought about Seifer and Squall. She always started off thinking about Seifer but somehow her mind always managed to wander to Squall.

Eventually the train came and she ended up getting off the other side in Balamb around 9pm.

Stepping out of the station she found it was pitch dark and pouring down with rain

"this is not my day" she muttered to herself as rain quickly soaked her hair and clothes.

'_What do I do now? It's far too dark to walk now. I guess I'll have to call a taxi'. _But searching in her purse she discovered she had next to no money. She really didn't want to have to walk it was far to scary. The rain was now accompanied by a strong blowing wind and the first signs of thunder.

She glanced around her trying to think of another option and her eyes fell on a payphone. A light bulb suddenly went off in her head. She could call Seifer and get him to come pick her up!

She ran over to the payphone, picked it up and dialled Seifers number. It rang and rang, but there was no answer. Slotting the last of her money into the payphone Rinoa rang the number of Selphies room and crossed her fingers. After a few rings she heard Selphies voice on the other end.

"Helooooooooo?"

"Thank god" Rinoa sighed into the phone "Um Selph, is there any chance I could ask a huge favour?"

"Sure thing"

"Ok I'm in Balamb town, but I'm a little ..stuck. I mean its really dark and it's raining, and I don't know my way back to Garden to well and its really creepy what with all the forests and all so is there any chance you could maybe come pick me up?"

"Awww you poor thing. But I don't drive, so I cant come get you"

'_Damn'_ Rinoa thought _'why didn't I think of that?'_

"Never mind then I guess…I guess I'll just have to walk"

"ooooh hold on, hold on. Were about are you?" Selphie asked

"By the station"

"Okay, right, work your way back to the town entrance and just wait there okay?"

"why?"

"Just do okay. Just wait there!" Selphie said before putting the phone down

Rinoa decided just to go with Selphie, it's not like she had any other choice. She sat on the bench at the entrance of town, shivering in the wind and Rain. She sat and wondered if she would have been better of walking after all. After about 15 minutes a very sporty black car pulled up just inside the town entrance and the engine stopped. Rinoa hoped this wouldn't be any trouble

'_knowing my luck, it probably is' _she thought to herself just as the window of the car wound down. The voice of the driver shouted "Get in the car"

At first Rinoa felt a shot of panic go through her, but then she could swear she recognised that voice. Was that…..Squall?

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ok so is Squall going to have to bail Rinoa out agian? he just seems to show up at all the right times doesnt he.? more coming soon on this story i promise.

oh jut a little A/N: i know selphie can drive in the game as she drives to the misile base, but ok for the purpose of the story she can not. and ok to rengade seraph, good call on Squall thumpin Seifer and Xxphoenix bladexX good call on the quistis thing (which comes into it a little more later on).. keep reading pleaseums!


	9. choices

**Disclaimer:** you guessed it y'all I don't own Ff8. It is property of someone who isn't me

**Note: **Okay, well I know I only updated this story yesterday, but I'm not sure when I'd be able to update again and I had the chapter so I thought why not update it. Must thanks my loooovely reviewers and readers. Thanks and my love and hugs to XxPhoenixbladexX, rinnyheartillyizawesome, draven nightly and jesh18 for reviewing my last chapter and also anyone else whose read and reviewed any of this story . I hope that this story still interesting to y'all. General feeling is Seifers a bit of an ass, and poor Rinoa, and that doesn't change too much in this chapter. Seifer surprise surprise carries on being an ass glares at seifer lol. Please keep reading and reviewing dudes and hope y'all enjoy the chapter. Peace and light x

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Rinoa ran over to the car and peered through the window. It was Squall.

"What are you doing here?" Rinoa asked him, leaning into the open window slightly.

"Picking you up" Squall said with no particular tone to his voice "now get in. I don't have all night"

Rinoa opened the door and slid into the car, glad to be out of the rain. Lots of things were going through her mind at the time; how strange it was that every time she ran into this guy he was there to help her out. How sweet it was of him to come pick her up. But then at the same time she couldn't help but think there may be a small chance that she wasn't entirely safe with this guy especially after everything Seifer had said

to her about him. '_Then again' _she thought '_there must be something fundamentally decent in this guy, he saved my life after all. If he wanted to hurt me, he's had his chances…he didn't have to save me'_. Another thought that then popped into her head was how Seifer was going to feel about this. But Rinoa knew she really had no choice, unless she wanted to walk home and freeze to death.

"Um, how come you came to get me?" she asked as she closed the door.

"I ran into Selphie" Squall said as he turned the engine back on and began to head out of town "She asked me was I busy. Stupidly I said not really. Then she asked me if I could drive, even more stupidly I said yes. So then there was no getting out of it"

"Thank you Squall" Rinoa said, shivering slightly as her hair and clothes were still soaked form the rain.

"Why didn't you just get Seifer to come pick you up?"

"I rang his room, but there was no answer. You're kinda my last hope. Otherwise I was going to have to walk"

"Little bit Rainy for that" Squall said. "You look cold". He reached across, leaning over Rinoa and flicked a tiny little switch, and suddenly the car went all nice and warm. But the nice warm feeling that shot through Rinoas veins at that moment had nothing to with that. It had everything to do with the fact that as Squall leant back across her , his hand just about brushed against the side of her arm, making her skin go all tingly for reasons she didn't understand. Rinoa knew she should hate this guy for the way he treated her boyfriend, but man, was this guy difficult to hate! There was just something to him, something undeniably and highly attractive yet frustratingly unnameable. It was everything the eyes, the hair, the distant tone of voice. They all just made him seem so…mysterious.

Unsure of what else to say Rinoa said "This is a nice car"

Squall shrugged "not mine. It belongs to Garden, I just borrowed it to come pick you up"

Rinoa nodded. She was unsure of exactly what to say. She wanted to ask Squall about the other day, why he'd punched Seifer, but she wasn't sure how wise of a move that would be. Soon Squall spoke.

"I gotta say" he said as he kept his eyes on the road "you have a way with getting yourself into awkward situations"

Rinoa would have protested but she could kind of see what Squall meant. It seemed most of the times she came into contact with this guy he was helping her out of some form of trouble.

"maybe I just make bad decisions" she said thinking out loud

"yeh" Squall muttered "like Seifer.."

"That's not what I was taking about. Seifer's….. great"

"he's a jerk"

"you really hate him don't you? Why?" Rinoa asked, unable to stop herself doing so

"he's an idiot" was all Squall said

"That's pretty harsh, and that's not a reason to hate him, he's a nice guy"

Squall started to feel seriously sorry for Rinoa. She really had been fooled blind. She had no clue of Seifers true colours, no clue how he was really treating her. For a second, a split second, Squall thought about telling Rinoa about Seifer cheating on her, but he didn't, knowing it would only hurt her.

"Look Rinoa…" Squall started, trying to think of a way to get it across to her that Seifer wasn't who she thought without causing too much trouble "I've known Seifer a long time and he's…he's not who you think he is, he's not this perfect person he's pretending to be…"

"And you are?" Rinoa said a little snappily "you sit here and you say all these terrible things about him, when you're the one with the problem! You're the one who punched him, for no reason!"

Finally taking his eyes of the road, he glanced over at Rinoa. Rain was still dripping from the ends of her hair down onto her face, and mascara was streaked on her cheeks in places, but Squall still thought she was pretty beautiful. And just looking at her, it killed him to think of what Seifer was doing to her, how he was using her.

"I had my reasons" he said, thinking back to what Seifer had said about him

"what then?" Rinoa asked starting to sound very angry

Squall hesitated. _'If only I could tell you…but it'd break your heart'_

"Nothing….forget it" he mumbled

"Are you jealous of him?"

Squall couldn't believe his ears "What?"

"That's the only explanation for you hating him like this"

"or because he's…" and he almost said it. He almost said because he's cheating on you. Thankfully he stopped himself just in time. It felt right that she should know, but the consequences he knew would not be good. It was like his brain was stopping his heart. "He's just…he's not a good person" he finished instead

"You know what Squall, I don't care what you think. Seifer and me are happy. He's a good guy and if you can't see that fine, but just stop bad mouthing him!" Rinoa snapped

Squall just shook his head slightly and looked back to the road.

The next few minutes were very very silent. There was a lot of tension in the small space between them. Eventually Rinoa spoke, breaking the silence.

"Seifer's right. You are cold"

"I'm sorry?" Squall asked blinking at her slightly confusedly behind his fringe.

"You're so…distant and detached and…cold. You have serious issues…"

'_Why is she saying this' _Squall thought _'Does she hate me, does she seriously hate me. Is it just what Seifers told her? Because I've never done anything but try and help her..'. _At that point, Squall became a little angry himself.

"you're ungrateful"

"What?"

"you're ungrateful, I'm trying to help you but you just wont listen. I've helped you more than once and this is what I get."

"You're not trying to help me, you're trying to split me and Seifer up. You want me to be unhappy!" she yelled

Finally arriving at Gardens car park, Squall shut off the engine of the car pulling the keys out and getting out.

"Think whatever the fuck you want" he said before slamming the door and walking off.

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Later that night Rinoa sat in her room thinking about what had happened and she started to feel guilty. Very guilty. She could see had really really offended him, and she realised what she was saying was probably pretty illogical. Why would he want her to be unhappy? And she also realised, even though she didn't want to, maybe she was slightly ungrateful. He had come out to pick her up, when he didn't have to, and on more than one occasion he had been the only thing between her and a very bad situation. If it weren't for him, she wouldn't actually even be alive.

"Oh god" she muttered to her self "I should.. .Apologise"

She got up from were she was sitting, deciding she would go find Squall and apologise quickly. Even if he had been a bit out of order over the Seifer thing, she had been more out of line. Opening the door she saw Seifer standing there just about to knock.

"hey baby" he said with a grin

"Seifer!". Rinoa hadn't been expecting Seifer that night, he had told her he would probably be busy. It was strange when she saw him, as well as feeling happy as she always did around Seifer, she also felt a little guilty for some reason. Like he could tell that she had even in a small way been thinking about Squall.

"Look, can you wait here? I'll be right back, I just have to go do something" she told him

"What, what's so important?" Seifer asked, leaning down slightly and kissing her on the cheek

"I just got to find Squall"

Seifer looked a little shocked and a little annoyed "Squall?"

So Rinoa explained the whole situation to him, what had happened with the trains, how she'd ended up in his car and what she had said to him.

"You don't need to apologise" Seifer said sounding almost…worried "he wont care"

"I know…maybe. But I feel guilty. I'd feel better if I did. I mean I know he wasn't very nice to you, but I really do owe him an apology."

Seifer pulled her down by her arm onto the edge of the bed where he was sitting.

He placed his hand on the side of her face "Wait, a second. 'Cause see I have a better idea of what we could do…"

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Squall was sitting in the cafeteria the next morning thinking about what had happened last night. He knew know that there was absolutely no way he was going to get Rinoa away from Seifer. He really did have her exactly where he wanted her, where she wouldn't believe a bad word said against his name. He knew Rinoa would just go along with it, Seifer would keep hurting her, and deep deep down inside Squall knew he would never have a chance with her himself now.

He looked up and saw three people walking towards him. One of whom was Selphie the other was a guy called Irvine, who he vaguely knew as being a relatively knew Garden Student, and the third of whom was a girl whose face he knew, but couldn't place.

"hey Squall" Selphie said as she got to the table "you know Irvine right?"

"not really." Squall said

"Ok" Selphie smiled "Well this is Irvine Kinneas, he's' taking me to the dance on Friday. We just thought we'd come say hi." Selphie and the tall cowboy exchanged glances and a little giggle, before Irvine said "hey Selph, lets go get some Coffee"

Selphie giggled and nodded, then glanced at the girl, then at Squall, then walked off holding hands with Irvine.

"What the hell" Squall muttered before realising that the girl who had been walking with them.

"Hey Squall." she said cheerily sitting down

Squall had no idea what this girls name was "Hey…"

"Tanya" the girl finished "It's Tanya. I'm in your class!"

"Oh yeh" Squall knew he'd seen her somewhere.

"Anyway, I was wondering. Well you know there's that dance on Friday, I was wondering if you were going with anyone, coz um……maybe if not, we could kind of go together." the girl said

'_the dance' _Squall thought, it was the first time he'd really thought about it. But he had no intention of going. _'I'm hardly a dance person. I can't dance at all. And Rinoa, she'll be there…with Seifer._ _Even if I go with Tanya I wont be able to stop thinking about her. It'll just be too hard….'_

"Um, I'm not going at all" Squall said, hoping not to hurt the girls feelings too much. He knew it wasn't really fair to say yes anyway, if the whole time he'd be thinking about someone else.

Tanya looked disappointed but tried to shrug it off "well, never mind" She got up "I'll see you around" she said before wandering off.

"yo" came Zells vice and Squall turned to see he was standing only a little way behind him.

"What was all that?" he asked "She was pretty! Why'd you say no"

"Because. I'm not going to the stupid dance"

"Is this about Rinoa?" Zell said narrowing his eyes at Squall

"No." Squall, deciding he really didn't want the conversation, to go any father, got up and walked away from Zell and out of the cafeteria.

He was heading to the training centre, his favourite place, when he ran into Headmaster Cid.

"Good morning Sir" Squall said

"Squall hello. Could I ask you a favour, I am run off my feet"

Looking at the older man, Squall could se this was true. His hair was slightly messy and his glasses sitting wonkily on his nose

"I need to speak with Seifer Almasy, but I can not seem to find him. Could you possibly try his dorm room for me and send him to my office?"

Seifer was the last person Squall wanted to see, but he didn't really have a choice. "Sure" he sighed before heading to Seifers room.

He stood at Seifers door, waiting. He had knocked several times and was about to leave, assuming Seifer was not there, when he heard some movement inside the room. A few seconds later the door opened, but Squall found he was not looking at Seifer. Standing in the door way, hair slightly messy, make up smudged and a white sheet wrapped around her was Rinoa.

When she saw Squall, she immediately dropped her eyes to the ground "Oh my god, Squall" she whispered

Squall felt a stab of something in his heart. It was very very clear what had gone on between her and Seifer. Partly it was anger he felt , anger that Seifer had really gone another step too far, and it was partly jealousy.

Trying to avert his eyes from Rinoa he said "Where's Seifer?"

Rinoa seemed to blush a little before answering "He's…he's in the shower"

This was painful for Squall. Very painful. He wondered how Seifer could actually do this to Rinoa. He clearly didn't care about her, he'd admitted as much, but he wasn't beyond sleeping with her for the sheer fun of it. Squall hated Seifer, more than he ever had before, in that moment.

"Just tell him I'm looking for him" he said before turning his back and walking down the corridor………….

Later that afternoon Squall still couldn't forget the whole situation. He sat in his class room thinking it all over while he waited for the rest of the class to arrive. Desperately, more than anything, he wanted to get over Rinoa then none of this would bother him. If he could just forget her, forget how he felt he wouldn't care what her and Seifer did. Except how in the hell did he get over her? He only had one idea and he wasn't even sure it would work…but he had to try. When the rest of the class started to file in, he spotted Tanya as she took her desk at the back. Taking a deep breath, he walked over to her.

"Hey" she said with a smile "whats up"

"I was thinking" Squall said slowly "About the dance. Let's go together."

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Squall, squall, squall, poor mislead squall. Well will he get over her? And what, oh what will happen at this dance. Well I'll give you a clue. a lot. But you'll have to read on……….

a/n: I made Tanya up. She is only in it briefly, but it was easier than having an existing character in the role, so I just made her up.


	10. The dance

**Disclaimer:** take a guess! Anyone who said I don't own ff8 gets ten points and some gummy bears!!!!

**Note:** well okay, here is another chapter for you lovely lovely readers. I am trying to get this story updated as quickly as possible as a surprising amount of people are enjoying it. I really appreciate all the support you guys. Ok obviously my thanks have to go to reviewers as usual so thanks and love and hugs to Lilnaych, XxPhoenix bladexX, angelz-di (although I'm not sure if you want me to finish it because you really love it or really hate it lol) rinnyheartillyizawesome , jesh18 Renegade seraph and BoAspika for your support on my last chapter. So wow general feeling after the last chapter well Rinoa sleeping with Seifer, she's a daft girl int she? And we all hate Seifer, because he's a bastard and Squall should kick his ass,(am glad that my story is actually inspiring some strongish feelings towards the characters,) and shock horror shock, Squalls got this tanya girl, what about poor rinny? Well read on my friends…!peace and light xx

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The whole quad of Garden was filled with people in elegant formal clothes dancing to classical music. The whole area had been lavishly decorated for the Garden Festival Committee ball and the event was a huge success. Almost everyone in Garden was there. If Squall Leonhart was at a social event, chances are everybody else was! Of course Squall wasn't really having very much fun. He wasn't even entirely sure why he went. Well, he was but he realised now that his reasoning was totally wrong. He had seriously thought that going to the dance with Tanya would help him get over Rinoa. Of course it didn't turn out that way because he couldn't take his eyes of her. She looked so beautiful and glamorous in a gorgeous silky white dress which was the perfect contrast with her long ebony hair. But she was alone. No Seifer. Which seemed very odd to Squall, he had assumed that Seifer would at least keep up the pretences and go to the dance with her. So many times Squall was tempted to go and ask her were Seifer was but since the other morning, he was kind of avoiding her and he got the impression she may be doing the same. It had been pretty awkward for both of them the other morning. Squall felt very uncomfortable knowing what he did, given it was something he would much rather not know. He'd much rather it had never happened.

He actually had no idea where Tanya was. She'd gone off to dance quite a while ago, so Squall just sat there looking very anti social. But moments later he noticed Rinoa was in fact heading straight towards him. He shifted slightly in his chair. He knew this was going to be awkward.

"Hey Squall" she said kind of quietly, not making eye contact

"hey"

"look about the other morning…I'm sorry, I hope…well it's…"

"Forget it" Squall said. "it's not important. So where's Seifer?"

Rinoa shrugged and looked kind of sad "I don't know. He said he'd meet me here, but he didn't come"

"Maybe he's just late. Caught up in something" Squall said, knowing it was actually more than likely that Seifer was standing her up. He just didn't want to say that.

"Yeh. I may just go look for him. I guess I'll go check his room or something. See ya" she said before walking away.

Zell, once again was standing very close behind Squall observing this. Squall was beginning to suspect that maybe Zell just lurked around waiting for interesting moments to comment on.

"you so still like her" Zell laughed

"Whatever"

"I don't understand why you just don't tell her"

"because I don't like her in the way you think I do." which was a total lie, because he absolutely did and he knew it, but he wasn't about to admit it to zell. " Plus she's with Seifer"

"He's an idiot. Is he even here? I haven't seen him."

"Probably stood Rinoa up. She's gone to find him" Squall shrugged

"He's such a jerk" Zell said, and Squall couldn't agree more. And Zell didn't even know about what had happened between him and Rinoa.

"Who's a jerk?" Irvine said, randomly appearing

"Seifer" Zell said with a tone of disgust "he stood Rinoa up"

"Huh" Irvine said "Seifer's that tall blonde guy right? The one with the scar and the big mouth?"

"yeh"

"I just saw him. Well about 20 minutes ago. He was heading to the dorms with some girl. I figured that was his girlfriend"

"But Rinoa was here.." Squall said "Oh crap"

"Dude, is he like cheating on her?" Zell asked "hey wait, didn't you say she'd gone to look for him?'

Squall sensed this was not going to end well. Rinoa was headed to Seifers room. He considered going after her, but figured it was probably too late, she'd be at his room by now, he just hoped and prayed Irvine had been mistaken.

He glanced around the room and spotted instructor Trepe talking to headmaster Cid. So if Seifer wasn't with Rinoa or Quistis, who was he with? How many people was he playing? The answer came soon enough. Loudly raised voices could be heard and they were getting louder. A few seconds later Rinoa came storming into the room crying and Seifer was following her. His hair was messed up, and he was wearing a crumpled, open shirt. It was relatively obvious what he had been up to in that dorm room.

"Oh calm down would you?" Seifer was yelling as he followed Rinoa across the room. Squall wondered why Rinoa had chosen to head back into such a public place, as everyone was now watching her and Seifer.

Rinoa spun on her heel and turned to face Seifer. "Calm down? You're telling me to calm down? You're cheating on me, and you expect me to calm? How…how could you even do this to me?" she yelled

Seifer rolled his eyes "Your such a freakin' Drama queen! I don't even know how I put up with you this long?"

"Put up with me? Is that what you were doing? Just putting up with me. Did you even like me?"

Seifer just laughed a little and said "What do you think"

"Your unbelievable" Rinoa said obviously trying to sound more angry than hurt "You're seriously sick. Well fuck you, we're through!"

"Oh like I give one!" Seifer yelled

"So I really meant nothing to you! Nothing at all! Was I literally just some cheap fun to you? Why, why would you even do it?"

"why would I not. You were that easy"

Instinctively Rinoa grabbed a glass of champagne from the guy walking past with a tray and she threw it in Seifers face, soaking him instantly.

"You bitch!" he yelled as the bubbly liquid dripped form his hair and face. He made an attempt to go for Rinoa, but he was restrained by Irvine, Zell and a few other students who were standing nearby. "yo, calm it down man" Irvine said holding back his arms.

Rinoa dropped the glass on the floor causing it to shatter and ran off out of the room towards the balcony crying. Half of the peoples eyes were following Rinoa while the rest were staring at the soaked seifer. As soon as Rinoa was one step out of the room, the whispering, gasping and laughing started. Squall had no idea what to do after witnessing all of that. Evidently few people did as most of the people in the room had just turned to discuss what had happened with their friends. It had been quite exciting for a formal event! Catching a glimpse of Quistis, squall noticed she looked extremely hurt and angry. It was evident that Rinoa had not been the only one played by Seifer, in the dark about his ways. But Squall had no sympathy for Quistis, not like he did for Rinoa. Squall was torn as to whether to go after Rinoa but he decide after a few minutes that maybe he should do….

Rinoa stood outside looking over the side of the balcony. She didn't really care that it was freezing cold and that her dress wasn't keeping her at all warm. She just couldn't stop crying. Various thoughts were whizzing around her head, fighting for the most attention.

'_How could he do this to me' _she thought _'I don't get what I did wrong. Was I just not good enough for him? Or was he really just using me? Was he only interested really in sleeping with me and now he's had enough? This is so unfair Why does everyone seem to hate me?'_

"Are you okay" came a voice from behind Rinoa

Without turning around she knew exactly who it was. She had become quite good at recognising it. The hardness of the voice, but with an underlying tone of care and concern could only belong to Squall. She wasn't entirely sure deep inside whether he was the person she most, or least wanted to see. He did have this strange way of making bad situations better, but since the other morning she had been avoiding him.

She had been feeling strangely guilty over the whole thing. She didn't know exactly why. Seifer was-at least at that point-her boyfriend so it's not like she had been doing that much wrong. Of course, she now wished she had never done it, but that really wasn't the point. The point was she couldn't place why she had felt so bad on that morning. She thought it had something to do with the look in Squalls eyes when she opened that door. She could swear she saw him look at her kind of like he was ashamed of her. But maybe that was more her projecting her feelings onto him. But regardless she did value his opinion of her a strange amount, and the point behind that was she possibly felt more for Squall than she originally realised.

In way of answering his question, she simply said "no" and put her head back down "are you here to say 'I told you so'"

"Why would I want to do that" Squall asked

"well, you warned me, didn't you. You kept telling me Seifer was bad news and well turns out you were right" she said looking out into the sky, and deliberately not at Squall.

"I didn't want to be right" was all he said

"Did you know?" she asked him. Even to her own ears, her voice seemed odd. It seemed so cold and it had such a hard edge to it.

"Know what?"

"that he was cheating on me?"

There was a long pause before Squall spoke. "yes, I did"

Suddenly the conversation she'd had with him that night in the car, where he;d been so desperate to convince her Seifer was bad , made more sense now

"But" he continued "I didn't tell you because…"

"Doesn't matter" she said cutting him off. In the whole time she still hadn't looked at Squall once, she knew it would be hard. She was starting to get pretty confused about what she felt for Squall…

"I'm sorry" he said "about all of this…is there anything, anything I can do?"

In one second, Rinoa found herself having to make a decision. She could let Squall in or she could push him away. She certainly felt something for him, even if she had no idea what it was. But it didn't even really matter. It was more than likely, Rinoa thought, that he only saw her as a stupid little girl who kept getting herself into all kinds of trouble. Besides all that, wasn't he with someone else now?

"Shouldn't you be with Tanya?" she asked her voice sounding harsher to her than ever before. She hears Squall sigh and say "fine", then he walked away. Rinoa stood alone watching the fading stars with tears dripping down her cheeks and the only thing she could think about everything that had happened was "why?"

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aww bless poor rinoa. shes only just realising she likes Squall, poor noodle. well in the next chapter we see both Squall and Rinoa seperately realise the true extent of their feeling for eachother, but they both ahve therte reasons for believeing the other would never ever care about them. ooh isnt this complex hahah lol! keep reading and revieing guys xx peace and light


	11. everything you want?

**Disclaimer: **don't own ff8. At all. Even in a small way. Not at all. Which sucks, because hello if I did own it then wow!

**A/N: **well, another chapter. Sorry this took a little longer than usual, but I should be able to update this story relatively quickly now as I've finished the other on going one I had. Well anyway back to this chapter. Thanks to anyone whose read the story (my friend taught me how to check the stats of my stories, so to y'all who've favourited my stories or read it then thanks!! Drop me a review or a Pm sometime, and let me know what you think of the story)and thanks to my reviewers of the last chapter rinnyheartillyizawesome, Wolfdog Girl, lilnaych, Draven Nightly and jesh18!So this chapter well well well Squall likes Rinoa but he thinks he has no chance as she hates him. But ah, does she? of course not. Well we'll find out! Thoughts as always in _italics_ This chapter was kind of inspired by a chorus from a song, I can so see this qoute kind of running through both Squall and Rinoa's minds, thinking about eachother. The song is by vertical horizon and is called "Everything you want". keep reading and peace and light xx

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_**I am everything you want**_

_**I am everything you need**_

_**I am everything inside of you**_

_**That you wish you could be**_

_**I say all the right things**_

_**At exactly the right times**_

_**But I mean nothing to you**_

_**And I don't know why**_

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Squall walked back into the quad to find that most people had gone back to dancing, except for Tanya who was waiting at the side of the room for him.

"There you are!" she said, making Squall feel incredibly guilty. He hadn't really seen Tanya all night, and had spent most of the night actually thinking about someone else.

"Wasn't what happened crazy? With Seifer, and that girl. I feel sorry for her" Tanya said sympathetically

"yeh, me too" Squall agreed. But he felt more sorry for her than he could actually ever explain. He had wanted Rinoa to find out about Seifer and what an idiot he was, but he hadn't wanted her to find out the way she did, actually walking in on him with someone else. He could only imagine how painful that moment must have been for her. But he didn't just feel sorry for Rinoa, he felt a little sorry for himself. Nothing he'd done or thought had helped him get over Rinoa, but she clearly had no interest in him, he wasn't even sure she liked him at all. Before, he was tricking himself with the thought that it was to do with the fact that she was with Seifer and he had been telling her all kinds of lies about him. But that defence was shattered tonight. She wasn't with Seifer now, she didn't have his voice whispering in her ear, but she'd still been pretty cold to him. Squall knew for sure now, that he had ultimately no chance of being with Rinoa in the way he wanted to be. But at least he had Tanya…..

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The week following the dance was painfully difficult for Rinoa.. Firstly, she knew everyone was talking about her and what had happened with Seifer. It was that horrible situation were as soon as you walk past someone they stop talking suddenly and just stare at you. Half of the people in Garden were with her and felt sorry for her, but some of them couldn't be anymore critical. They were saying all kinds of things about her. Rinoa tried to let it all go over her head, but it was really very difficult. It didn't help when she bumped into Seifer either. He spoke in a cavalier tone, completely dismissing what had happened between them.

"How's it going doll face?" he asked when he passed her in the hallway

"Leave me alone Seifer" Rinoa said. Seifer was the last person she wanted to see. Every time she saw him she was left with a feeling of confusion and utter shame. Why had she put so much into there relationship? _'How could I have let it go so far without noticing. The signs were there. He was always "busy"' _

"oh, now that's not very nice is it?" Seifer said with a sarcastic little grin

"Neither is cheating on someone" Rinoa snapped back

"well, I see someone's still pissed"

"really?" Rinoa said sarcastically "that obvious?"

"yeh. Your only this mad, because you miss me already. I'll take ya back if ya want."

Rinoa was appalled at her self. How could she ever have liked this guy? He just seemed so arrogant and smug now

"No thanks" Rinoa said, trying to sound at least remotely strong "and don't flatter yourself, you weren't that good". Then she turned and walked down the corridor, not giving him a chance to say anything else. But as she walked away, she heard him snigger, so she guessed he wasn't even remotely concerned with any of it. She continued on her way to the cafeteria, and when she got inside she tried to find Selphie-whom she considered her only real friend in Garden-but she could not find her amongst the crowds. She stood searching the room, fully aware that everyone who passed her was making some kind of judgement on her, whether it be fairly based or just an unusual will of spite in these people. It was mostly the girls in garden who were particularly insulting, especially the ones in the cafeteria today _'Bitches' _Rinoa thought to herself '_they don't even know me!'_ .

She heard a voice call out her name and saw it came from the other side of the room. It belonged to Irvine, Selphies boyfriend. He was sat at a table with Selphie, Zell, Squall and of course Tanya. Because of course now, wherever Squall went, Tanya went to. That was another thing that was insanely difficult for Rinoa, the whole thing with Squall and Tanya. It had taken Rinoa a while to be able to admit to herself that she was jealous. But she really was. Over the days since the Dance, Rinoa had realised just how much she really liked Squall. Thinking back over the time since she had met him, she realised that he had always kind of been there for her, if she needed help. Underneath that cold exterior, Rinoa knew he was a deeply caring person. Or at least she thought so. So it was hard seeing him with Tanya as she knew that maybe if she'd made different choices, acted differently, she could have been the one in her shoes. Although Rinoa figured that now she meant nothing to Squall, she probably didn't even enter his consciousness, especially now he was with Tanya.

As soon as Rinoa reached the table Selphie said "Hey, what's up Rin, you look kind of down"

"nothing" Rinoa said quickly. She could not possibly say what was up, that she basically wanted Squall. "I…I just saw Seifer"

"Oh my gosh. That must have been so hard" Tanya, who was sitting with Squalls arm around her, gasped. Rinoa looked at the girl. She was very pretty. Way too pretty. She had long blonde hair, bright blue eyes and a little pouty mouth. Plus she was a nice person, which made it hard to hate her.

"Yeh" Rinoa nodded "it was"

"Are you okay?" Squall asked, not looking up from the table

"Fine thanks. Hey Selph, it's a bit crowded in here, and there's kind of something I want to talk to you about. Wanna um take a walk or something"

"is it serious?" Selphie asked standing up

"kind of" Rinoa said slowly. She had decided she had to confide in somebody about how she was feeling or it would driver her insane.

"So what is it?" Selphie asked her once they were out of the cafeteria

"Ok" Rinoa said taking a deep breath "But what I am going to tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone, and I mean anyone."

"I swear" Selphie says "I can keep a secret"

Rinoa inhaled slowly before speaking "I …like Squall"

"What do you mean? you like him, like him. Like, you have feelings for him?"

"Yeh" Rinoa said hanging her head "It's terrible"

"um...wow" was all selphie said

"I know. But it just sort of happened. I mean he's always been kind of nice to me, and he saved my life and he's just really…good"

"Plus he is hot" Selphie said "Do you know how he feels about you?"

"I'm guessing he feels nothing really. I mean I couldn't have picked a worse time or person, given that he's with Tanya now. And she's so pretty and smart. He hardly even sees me I don't think."

"Yeh. That's harsh" Selphie sighed "What are you gonna do?"

"Just ride it out I guess. Hope it fades away after a while"

Selphie nodded "Poor you. And sorry, but I have got to get to class, you wanna talk later?"

"Yeh, sure. Thanks selph"

"just hang in there. Look on the Brightside, it probably cant get any harder…."

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It had been a few days since the dance when Squall saw Seifer again, and he seemed completely and totally unconcerned by the whole Rinoa issue.

"Hey Squall" he said in passing him in the corridor

Squall chose not to acknowledge him.

"ooh boohoo you not talking to me now?" Seifer laughed

"I have nothing to say to you" Squall said simply

"I'm sure you do. I bet there's all kinds of things your thinking that you'd like to say about me"

"well, I think you're a jerk but that's about it. Actually there is one thing I want to ask though. The other night you weren't with Rinoa and you weren't with Quistis who the hell were you with"

Seifer shrugged "Joanne, or Jodie or something. I don't remember her name"

"You're unbelievable, you know that? But you were still stupid enough to get caught"

"Yeh, I don't actually really care. I mean I never planned for her to find out yet, Rinoa I mean, but whatever. I pretty much got everything out of her I wanted. She wasn't that good though, hardly worth the effort."

Squall really couldn't believe this guy. It was like he had no morals, whatsoever

"Don't you think you took it a little far?" he asked

"how'd you mean" Seifer asked starting to sound bored

"C'mon Seifer, you know what I mean. You slept with her and you didn't even like her. It may have meant jack to you but it probably meant something to her , that's why it was too far."

"You crack me up Squall. Here you are getting on your high ground but really its just because you're jealous. But I mean ouch it seriously must have hurt finding out the way you did, when you came to my room…"

It did hurt but Squall wasn't going to let Seifer know that "whatever. I'm used to you being an asshole, but her, you completely screwed her over"

Seifer just laughed "Screwed her over? If you really wanna know Squall I screwed her every way you can imagine"

Squall found it very hard to resist punching Seifer in the face and he almost did so. But then he realised that was exactly what Seifer was trying to do, provoke him. If he hit Seifer one more time, he'd be suspended, no question so Squall breathed deeply, turned and walked away from Seifer ,clenching his fists.

He was angry. He was furious. He headed out of Garden and over to the forest on Balamb to take out some of his frustration by training. But not long after he got out there, the weather started to rapidly change. Trees started to blow violently in the wind and heavy rain suddenly fell from the now grey sky.

"oh hell" Squall muttered, deciding to quickly head back to garden. The onset of the rain had been so quick that he was already soaked. He dashed back to Garden desperate to get out of the cold rain. He reached the entrance just as thunder rumbled and a bolt of blue lightening split the sky. just as he turned to go into Garden, he could swear he heard someone crying softly. He glanced around and saw were the sound was coming from. On the bench not far away there was someone huddled over, crying. There long dark hair was covering their face but Squall still knew exactly who it was. Rinoa.

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Dun dun dun. So why is she crying? Find out next chapter, coming soon xx

btw i have a question for y'all. at the moment i have ideas for 2 new stories. now one is another Au romance (but not linked to this) and one is a general one with a little bit of everything in (ie a mission, and some romance and some humour and stuff). i am gonna start working on one soon so it can be posted when this is done, anybody have any interest on me doing another story or any preferences on which i post first? if so please just let me know in a message or a review which if either you are interested in. thanks a million xxx


	12. closer

Disclaimer: I don't own Ff8. I would like to, but I don't.  
Note: Well another chapter. I whole heartedly apologise for the delay of this chapter, but the site has not been letting me upload new documents but finally here it is!!!.i also apologise if there are errors in the layout as it would let me format it.and thoughts in itallics! but pah to the technical nonesense and on with the story! So Now Rinoa's crying in the rain and squalls the only one there to comfort her. But why is she crying? Well we find out in the chapter. She has a very emotional conversation with Squall, were he discovers why she ran away in the first place, and well what will it lead to I must wonder. Read on and find out! Thanks for reading everyone and especially thanks to my reviewers renegade seraph, XxphoenixbladexX, lilnaych, rinnyheartillyizawesome and draven nightly. peace and light and enjoy the chapter! xx  
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Pushing his wet, dripping fringe out of his eyes, Squall walked over to where the girl was sitting huddled up in the rain.

"What the hell are you doing" he asked, getting her attention

She looked up at him. Her hair was hanging in a wet tangled mess in front of her face, her eyes were read and Squinty and filled with tears and her makeup was running down her face. But Squall noticed something even more concerning. In one hand she was holding a bottle of vodka by the neck and already nearly a quarter of it was gone. After seeing him, she just took another drink from the bottle and put her head down again.  
"What's going on?" he asked her seriously. This situation looked far less than positive "It's the start of a freakin' rain storm, come inside"

"No thanks" she said quietly

Squall wondered why exactly someone would want to sit around in a downpour. "What's wrong?"

"…Nothing"

"Yeah, this really looks like nothing" Squall said sitting down on the bench next to her. He was very cold and very wet, but he knew it wouldn't be right to leave her out here like this

"You…you don't want to know" Rinoa said raising the bottle to her lips to take another drink, but Squall grabbed the bottle from her

"Hey!"

"Look" Squall said "something's wrong, clearly. But this is not a good way to go"

"give that back…I…I need it"

"Why?"

"Because…" suddenly she started to cry again "because I want to forget…I want to make it all go away"

Squall had no idea what she was talking about but she seemed pretty upset over it all. But regardless of what it was, he had no intention of giving the bottle back to her. He tipped the bottle upside down, pouring the contents onto the already wet grass bellow.

"hey!" she cried again

"Look, obviously you have problems, but drinking yourself stupid isn't going to help anything" Squall said throwing the empty bottle on the ground.

"no" she said through tears, as shivered in the rain "I'm already stupid enough…."

The rain was getting heavier and colder and Squall was literally soaked to the skin. He was also becoming ever so slightly frustrated with the situation. Rinoa was clearly very upset which was bad enough for him to have to see, but she wasn't exactly volunteering any information to let him in on what was actually going on. And he was starting to get very very cold.

"Is this about Seifer?" he asked taking his best guess at what could be wrong with her. Rain was now trickling down his noise, dripping form his very wet fringe. Rinoas hair was sticking to her face, straggly and wet, but she didn't seem to notice. Squall only realised then, that they were now sitting in the middle of a full blown storm.

"I wish it was Seifer" Rinoa sobbed "but it's worse…it's my father"

"Your father?". Squall dimly remembered back to when he had first met Rinoa. She had been desperate that Garden did not call her Father.

"He knows, where I am. He called here…and…" at that moment she broke down, bursting into hysterical tears, which caused her whole body to shake. She dropped her head into her hands and She was so over come with tears that she could barely speak properly "I just can't take it Squall, I can't."

Squall still didn't know exactly what she was talking about, but she was getting more and more distraught. He hated it when people cried around him. He never had any idea what to do or say and he always felt awkward. This situation was no exception, if anything, it was even harder for him, given how he actually felt about this girl. He was incredibly conscious of just how much he liked her, worrying at that at anytime he might let it slip just what he felt .Managing to put his awkwardness aside, as she was clearly in need of some kind of support and comfort, and not knowing exactly what else to do, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and as soon as he did she moved into him, resting her whole body against him. Squall felt strange being so close to her. He could feel her heartbeat against his own , could feel every single movement she made, could feel her breath on his skin and could smell her scent, which was sweet and warm. Damn was this strange to him.

"Look, Rinoa" he said softly, as he wrapped his arms around her "whatever it is, I'm sure there's a solution. But can we please just go inside, it's torrential"

"I guess" she said kind of slowly "…I guess I'll just go back to my room"

"No. No way" Squall thought back to what Kadowaki had said to him about Rinoa, way back when she had first got there. Cuts across her wrists and not entirely stable. Being a pretty smart guy, Squall decided it was probably best not to let her go off on her own in her current emotional state, especially as she'd been drinking.

Thinking quickly, he decided his dorm room would probably be the best option. It was somewhere she could talk if she wanted to, somewhere not public and also somewhere where he could dry off. "just come with me okay?"

He realised when they were on the way to his dorm room how this could give an incredibly bad impression, taking girls who were infact not his girlfriend back to his dorm room, but there really wasn't much choice. If he let her go off on her own, and she hurt herself, he could never forgive himself. He had to at least try to help her with whatever she was going through. Luckily there weren't too many people around the halls of Garden to see them anyway, most people were in class, or in their own rooms.  
When Squall got Rinoa to his room she was still crying, but seemed to have calmed down a little, but she seemed to have just gone blank. She was just staring straight ahead as tears fell from her eyes. He sat her down on the end of the bed and wondered what the hell was going on with her. Something was seriously wrong, the way she kept switching from being highly emotional, to completely silent. It probably didn't help that she downed about a quarter of a bottle of vodka which was bound to mess with her emotions. But there was way more to it than that.

He handed Rinoa a white fluffy towel "here, you might want to dry off"  
She took the towel without a word and slowly dried little sections of her hair with it while looking absent minded and at the same time scared.. After drying his own soaking wet hair with a towel and changing his shirt for an ultimately less wet one he sat down next to Rinoa on his bed.

"Alright so you said your dad knows where you are. And that's a bad thing I guess?"

She nodded "yeh it's bad" she said slowly "very bad"

"You're going to have to explain it all to me. I mean you ran away from home, you told me he was why and you begged me that he didn't get called. Then he calls you and finds out where you are and you go…like this. Why do you hate your dad, and why did you run away?"

The girl seemed to speak in the same detached tone she had used when he had first met her. "do you like your parents Squall?"

"I don't know. I …I never knew them. I was an orphan"

"oh…I'm sorry"

"Don't be. I'm not. Not really anyway. But you didn't really answer my question. Why do you hate your dad so much ?"

She shook her head as tears began to freely flow "I can't tell you"

"yes, you can. And you should this is clearly getting to you"

"he's.. he's not a nice man" she said slowly as if she was trying to find the best way to say it.

"clearly"

"he um…" Rinoa was trying desperately to control her crying which was getting increasingly worse "he used to kind of…"

"what?" Squall asked as gently as he could. He actually only half wanted to know the end of that sentence, half of him was afraid of what it would be.

"umm…hit me. A lot.".

Squall was taken aback. Partly he was shocked and partly just angry. How in hell did anyone think they had the right to hurt someone as good as Rinoa?

"I think it was just his way of getting out anger, most of the time I dint even do anything" Rinoa continued. She seemed to just talk in one continuous stream. It was obviously just easier for her to get it all out in one go

"but it was all the time. Every single day he'd get angry at me. It's been that way for two years, since my mom died. Me and her. we were so close, I loved her so so much she was like my best friend. And it was hard enough when she died, but then all this started. And it got worse as it went on. And it got to a point were I just couldn't carry on, I couldn't cope"  
She was crying so much, she could barely from complete sentences

"I just…I didn't know what to do and…I did, I did some pretty s-stupid things, to try and make it stop hurting…."she turned her arm over and shed had deep cuts across her wrists. Most of them were starting to heal, but Squall could see they had been deep and probably very painful. He could see why Kadowaki had been so concerned when shed first seen them. Because as much as he liked her, Squall had to admit that Rinoa wasn't exactly stable at all. But given what she had just told him, he wasn't surprised.

"nothing worked though" she said "it just kept going on and on, getting beat up damn near every night. And no-one really cared about me enough to notice, I didn't have so many friends, no real ones anyway. But there was this one guy and he seemed to actually care.."

"Good"

".. I said seemed to, not did. It was all an act. That didn't end to well either. He wasn't much better than my father..".

Squall actually found it strange that she was being so open with him over it all, he guessed that was probably partially down to the alcohol, and partially down to the fact that she just really needed to tell someone, anyone, so he let her carry on talking, just listening for her. ..

"so see…we started going out and it was great, but then he was…well he wanted way more than I was willing to give him and I turned him down. And suddenly it turned out um he had a pretty violent side too. He called me everything you can imagine, said I'd lead him along and all that…basically beat the hell out of me. But that evidently wasn't enough for this guy, so he decided to just spread it around that I had done everything he wanted and everyone was talking about me.This um, well it kind of got around to my dad somehow and he said I was a disgrace and a slut and I guess you can imagine how that conversation ended…"

"he beat you up" Squall said.  
This whole story was sickening. How could one person have to go through it all. How was that fair?

"yeah. Then he locked me in my room..for 24 freaking hours. I had to run then, I just had to, I couldn't stay anymore. And then I nearly die but you saved me and then I got here and I just tried to get over it all, put it all behind me, but then there was Seifer. And now this…my father…if he comes here…after I ran away…if he finds me, he'll………"

At this point, she was just totally overcome with emotion. She seemed to just fall forwards, dropping her head and the whole of her upper body down. Squall wrapped his arm around her waist, pulled her up and pulled her close to him, hugging her tightly. He could feel how hard she was sobbing-it seemed to make her whole body shake.

As a general rule, Squall didn't hug people, but this time…She really needed to be hugged, and he didn't have to many objections, given the fact that he was starting to suspect he may actually be in love with this girl. He had liked her before, but now, after this, after everything she'd told him, he felt his feelings getting so much stronger, burning inside of him. He was so amazed by this, amazed by how strong she was, that she'd managed to keep it all inside and liver her life. Squall would never have guessed she had been through a hell like the one shed described, shed never let it show.

"it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be fine" he tried to reassure her as he held her tightly

"it's not. It'll be hell" she sobbed "he'll kill me, he'll be furious" quickly and suddenly she broke away from Squall and stood up " I have to get out of here, before he comes here, I have to leave"

Squall grabbed both her hands and pulled her back down "no, don't leave"

"I have to, I'm…I'm not safe here"

"you are" he reassured her

"No, you don't understand Squall, you don't understand how angry he gets. When he finds me, it wont end well…he'll hurt me"

"no, Rinoa, he wont, I wont let him. If he finds you, if I have to, I'll protect you"

More than anything Squall wanted to protect her. Well actually, more than anything he wanted to beat the crap out of her dad and her psycho ex, but he would protect her. There was just something about her that made him want to give his life to protect her.  
_'I don't get it, I don't get how anyone could want to hurt her. She's just so sweet and kind. This girl has had such a bad life, and she didn't deserve any of it'_

"R-really?" she asked, very surprised

"yeh, really. If your dad show up, just come get me okay, and I'll protect you. I promise"

"w-why are you being so nice to me?"

"why not"

" I haven't exactly been the nicest to you. It's just that, well I thought you were different to how you really are. Seifer, he told me all these things about you and I actually believed him. I feel so stupid"

"it's not your fault. Seifers very manipulative"

"he is. He was another one…he was only out to hurt me. Why is it always me Squall? Why does everyone seem to hate me?"

Squall was know finding it every hard not tot tell her that he far from hated her. He was finding it hard not to tell her exactly how he did feel about her.  
"it's…I think it's because you're vulnerable" he said

"huh?"

"I mean that jackass you went out with, you were vulnerable then and he took advantage of that. Same with Seifer. You were pretty scared and vulnerable when you came here, and that was easy to take advantage of, hence Seifer"

"I guess…but what about you?"

"what about me?"

"you had an advantage over me, you saved my life. But you didn't try anything, you didn't hurt me"

"I'm not like that" was all he said. He had to think very carefully about what he was saying each time to resist the urge he was having to just tell her how he felt.

"I guess you're not are you? You're kind of …good. I'll miss you I think"

"miss me? Where are you going?"

"I don't really know, away from here. I mean I know you said not to leave because of my father, but its not just that. Its not so great here since the thing with Seifer. It's really hard"

"but…you can't leave" Squall said.

He couldn't let her go. Even if he couldn't be with her, at least he still got to see her most days, if she left, he knew he might never see her again.

Rinoa started to cry again "why not, its not like anyone would miss me if I left, there's no reason to stay" she said, leaning her head on his shoulder.  
_ 'Damn it, she can't leave. I have a reason for her to stay, but I can't exactly tell her can I . Or can I? should I? Would it make her stay, or maybe it would just make her leave even quicker' _Squall did not know what to do. It was fighting to get out of him, fighting to tell her.

Squall placed his hand under her chin and lifted her face up so her eyes met his

"look Rinoa, I should tell you something. I…"

"hey Squall, you in there?" called a voice form the other side of the door interrupting Squall. "it's Tanya, open up"

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Curses Tanya curses you daft woman, he was just about to tell her how he felt! Hahah poor squall, read on to see if he ever actaully gets to tell her how he feels xx more soon


	13. loves me, loves me not

**Disclaimer: I don't own ff8. I hope to someday though! I do own Tanya, which is a shame because I kind of hate her!**

**A/N: well another chapter of this dramatic little mess of a story tee-hee.Many thanks to the reviewers of the last chapter Draven nightly, jesh18,XxPhoenix bladexX, renegade seraph and sayuri21. Also zellycat even if it was just to try and prove me wrong haha.and thanks for the help on the chapter title! Anyway, onwards. So we all hate Tanya now right? Gee talk about timing haha. Die Tanya lol! Wonder how it will all work out, read on and find out. Thoughts in italics as usual. Peace and light xx**

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Squall froze the minute he heard the voice. Tanya! In all honesty, he had forgotten about her.

"Squall, I'm coming in okay"

Squall panicked. He knew the door was unlocked and it would literally take Tanya a second to get in. He instantly moved his hand from Rinoas face and stood up, putting distance between the two of them just as Tanya entered the room

"what's going on, I…."Tanya stopped as her gaze settled on Rinoa. She glanced at her, then at Squall "what's this about?"

"I…I should go" Rinoa mumbled, standing up and pushing past Tanya and Squall, out of the door.

"What was all that?" Tanya asked suspiciously, turning her gaze onto Squall "What's going on?"

"Nothing" Squall said quickly. After all nothing really had happened. And Squall wasn't entirely sure yet whether that was a good thing or not. He wondered, had Tanya not interrupted them, would he have told Rinoa how he felt? The more he thought about it, the more he started to wonder if maybe Tanyas interruption had been more of a blessing than a curse. Thinking more rationally, outside the emotion of the moment, Squall realised that telling Rinoa might not have been the greatest of ideas. Infact, it might have been a pretty bad one.

'_I cant believe I even considered it. What was the point. There's no way she'd feel even remotely similar, no way she'd like it. It would only have made things more awkward and confusing'_

"Nothing?" Tanya echoed, her hands on her hips "Really?"

"Really. She was…she was just upset about something and …"

"and what?"

"and nothing. She's a friend, she was upset so we talked. Well, she talked, I listened"

"just a friend?"

Squall nodded. Regardless of how he felt about her being just a friend, that's what they were. Just Friends.

"So there isn't something going on between the two of you then"

'_I wish' _was Squalls immediate thought, but he obviously did not say that out loud.

"no. of course not. I'm with you remember"

Tanya cocked her head to one side "yeh, but do you actually want to be?"

This was actually something Squall had been thinking about himself. He knew Tanya wasn't the one he really wanted, but given that he couldn't have the one he wanted, Tanya was not a bad alternative. She was smart, pretty and good company. She just…she wasn't Rinoa. But Squall knew he had to try and get over the idea of him and Rinoa, it was likely never to happen.

"Of course I do Tanya……."

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Rinoa woke up the next morning lying in her dorm room, which was flooded with a sickly morning light.. Groggily she glanced over to the clock but the numbers were blurry. Her head was pounding.

She placed her hand on her forehead, wondering the reason behind such an extreme headache. For a few seconds her memory was blank, but then it started to come back to her, memories slowly trickling back into her mind.

Her father calling, the rainstorm, that bottle of vodka and….

Rinoa shot upright "Squall!". She regretted this as it caused immense amounts of pain in her head. She lay back down and placed both hands on her forehead trying to sooth the pain.

'_Squall! I told him everything. Literally everything. I didn't mean to…I didn't want anyone to ever know any of that. Especially not him though…he must think I'm pathetic. Then again, he did seem pretty…supportive and he was…pretty sweet about it all. Felt sorry for me no doubt. Damn it! Why did he have to be so perfect, it's only making my life harder. He's just so kind and smart and strong. And man is he hot! But…' _Suddenly Rinoas thoughts jumped to the end of her and Squalls conversation. '_He wanted to tell me something. I wonder what it was. Maybe…maybe he wanted to tell me that he…no don't be ridiculous Rinoa. He's with Tanya, he's happy with Tanya. And I'm alone as usual'_

After laying there for a few more minutes, Rinoa decided to get up and visit the cafeteria, the place were she usually found Selphie.

And this day was no exception. There she was in the cafeteria, sitting at a table with Irvine and Squall and Tanya.

As soon as Rinoa approached the table she noticed Tanya give her a suspicious look and then look back down at the table.

"Hey Rinoa" Selphie beamed "how are ya?"

"I'm good thanks. But um…Squall could I possibly have a quick word with you?" she asked quietly

"Sure". As soon as Squall said that Rinoa glanced at Tanya and noticed her roll her eyes slightly and pout.

She walked away from the table slightly, to the side of the cafeteria and Squall followed her.

"what is it.? Are you doing okay?" he asked her

"yeh, I'm doing better thanks. It's um, just about yesterday. I just want to say thank you and apologise too"

"what are you apologising for?"

"Just, I kind of got carried away and a little emotional and all that alcohol didn't help. I'm so embarrassed about it all and I'm just sorry you had to put up with all the drama."

Squall shrugged his shoulders and smiled slightly "It wasn't a problem and there's no need to be embarrassed or to apologise. You had every right to be upset. I'm just glad I could be there to listen…"

"yeh, me too. So thanks again"

"No problem. What are friends for?"

"Don't know" Rinoa said quickly "Don't have very many. Oh and can I ask you just one more thing? Could you just maybe not tell anyone about any of this"

"sure."

"thank you Squall" she said, but as she started to walk away he reached out and grabbed her hand

"look, I meant what I said. If you need any help, or you have any more trouble with your father, just find me alright, I'll help you"

"thank you so much" Rinoa was touched by how sweet this guy was actually being to her. And she thought this would be the perfect moment to ask Squall what it was he was going to tell her yesterday, before Tanya came along. But before she could, she realised Tanya was now actually standing behind her.

"Squall" Tanya said sounding slightly upset "we've got class. We should get going"

Squall nodded "Oh, yeh, all right. I'll see you later Rinoa"

Rinoa watched them walk away and cursed her own bad luck. Why did she have to fall for him? And why did he have to be with Tanya?

'_I guess I've got no one to blame but myself_ . _I only realised how I felt after he was with Tanya, only wanted him when I couldn't have him. Maybe if I hadn't have wasted all that time with Seifer…'_

Rinoa decided to get out of Garden for a few hours, and she headed for the beach nearby.

She sat there the whole afternoon in the gentle sun while the cool waves splashed over her bare feet. Staring out into the horizon, she wondered what to do next. So her father knew about where she was. And Squall knew all about her father. If her father showed up, Rinoa wasn't sure who the situation would be more dangerous for. Her dad had a temper like hell but then again Squall didn't seem to be the most rational of all people.

'_I wonder if he will come here.' _Since her father had rang yesterday, this is the first time she'd properly thought about it, given that yesterday her initial reaction had just been to try and ignore it, drown her sorrows. But now, she was really thinking about it.

'_Maybe I should just leave. Then there's no chance of him finding me, and I wouldn't have to be around Squall all the time. Not that it's Squall I object to, more him and Tanya. What's the point of sticking around just so I can watch them fall more and more in love. He's never going to want me, I'm probably just wasting my time even thinking about him'_

At that moment Rinoa jumped as a voice behind her spoke out of nowhere.

It was Selphies bubbly tone "Hey, there you are. I've been looking everywhere for you!"

"Why?"

"Cid asked me to find you" Rinoa noticed that Selphie sounded highly excited "you have a visitor!"

"Really. Who?"

"I think he said it was your father"…………

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Dun dun dun!!!

Damn you bubbly Selphie! that's not a good thing you know! Ok well you don't only squall knows. So there's major Drama to come I'll let you know! Please read and review and I'll update soon! xxx


	14. protection

**Disclaimer: shockingly I actually don't own ff 8.**

**A/N; hello! I apologise for the kind of delay on this chapter. I meant to post it sooner but well it kept behaving rather evilly to me. But hahaha finally beat it. So as usual this chapter is for all my reviewers of chapter 13 ****CrazyTurkey**

**Draven Nightly****XxPhoenix BladexX****lilnaych****jesh18****Zellycat**** and ****PriestessEmily****. Hope everyone enjoys the chapter. And yes, it is rather dramatic heheeheh. Enjoy!. Peace and light xx**

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Trembling, Rinoa turned the handle of the door to Cids office, opening it and revealing her father sitting there at Cids desk. A huge chill went down her spine the moment she saw him.

"ahh Rinoa, please come in. your father is very anxious to see you"

As soon as Rinoa entered the room her father stood up "Rinoa, I'm so glad you're safe!"

But Rinoa knew his concern was completely fake, an act. She knew really he was furious, she could see the anger in his eyes.

"Really" she said sarcastically

Her father turned to Cid "Excuse me headmaster, do you think there is a place where my daughter and I could have some privacy"

"yes, yes of course. Infact, I have a meeting to attend so feel free to use this room. I shall give you your privacy now" Cid said leaving the room and closing the door behind him. And the moment that door shut Rinoa knew exactly what was coming. Before she even had time to process the situation her father hit her across the side of her face and she dropped to the floor.

"You deceitful, conniving bitch" he hissed "did you really think I wouldn't find out where you'd run off to?"

"Why are you here?" Rinoa said trying to hold off a flood of tears "what do you want?"

"I'm here to take you back to Deling"

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" Rinoa protested

"Yes, you are. You're going to go and get your things and then we're leaving"

" I'm staying here" Rinoa said, despite the fact she knew it was probably going to cost her to answer back.

"Don't be ridiculous. Why would you think I'd let you stay here you stupid little girl"

"Why not? Why do you even care where I am, you don't really give one about me."

"And you assume anyone here does.? How naïve. But I have told you you're coming back and you will not disobey me!"

"No. Leave me alone!"

Rinoas father once again hit her, hard, and blood started to trickle from her lip. The pain and tears were blurring her thoughts, but one thought kept coming through clearly '_Squall. Where are you?'_

"you never learn do you?" he father boomed "you can never just keep your mouth shut and do what your told!"

"W-why should I do what you say. You're evil, you treat me like…"

"I treat you like you deserve to be treated. Maybe if you grew up a bit, weren't so pathetic and annoying it'd be different. Now, we're leaving"

"No. I'm…I'm not going to do what you tell me!"

Rinoas father shook his head and gave alittle laugh "Then I'll have to force you ut of here"…

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Squall was leaving the class room with Zell and Tanya when they ran into Selphie, just by the elevators.

"Hey Selph, where've you been?"Tanya asked

"Oh I was up at Cids office, so when I came down I thought I'd wait for you guys"

"Uh-ohhhhhh" Zell laughed "Cids office? You got in trouble!!"

"Nuh-uh" Selphie shook her head "I just went up there to show Rinoa where it was"

"Rinoa?" Squall asked, trying to sound casually unconcerned

"Yeh, I just had to take her up there. Her dad came to see her and…"

"Her dad?" Squall asked, panicking suddenly

"Um, yeah"

"What's up Squall?" Zell asked

"They're in Cids office?' Squall asked Selphie

"Yep. What's wrong?"

"I gotta get up there" Squall said heading for the elevator

"Squall, tell me what's going on" Tanya demanded

"I'll explain later" he said before pushing the button that closed the elevator doors.

'_Geez, Doesn't this thing go any faster' _Squall thought as he waited for the elevator to reach 3rd floor. He knew that ordinarily students weren't supposed to go to Cids office without permission, but he really didn't care. _'I've got to help Rinoa. I promised I would. Just hope I'm not too late…'_

Finally with a little ding the elevator doors opened and Squall headed for the office door and knocked loudly on it.

"Rinoa, are you in there?"

"Go away please" came a male voice from inside the room. Squall knew it was definitely not Cid, so he figured it had to be Rinoas dad. He tried the handle of the door, but it was locked. _'Guessing it wasn't Rinoa who locked that. What the hell is going on in there?'_

"Open the door! Rinoa?"

'Help me!" called Rinoas familiar voice from inside the room. Squall could tell from her voice that she was crying as she spoke. He heard the sound of some commotion and then heard her cry out in pain. Presumably her father had decided to try and silence her.

"Open the damn door" called with no luck. Finally, not knowing what else to do he rammed his shoulder into the door, breaking the lock and forcing the door open. It hurt like hell, but he had no other choice.

"who the hell are you?" Rinoas dad hissed at him as soon as he saw him.

He was quite a tall man, and wider than Squall at the shoulders but the grey streaks in his hair gave away that he was quite a lot older.

Rinoa, who was cowering in the corner of the room, suddenly stood up, dashed across the room and threw herself into Squalls arms

"please help me" she cried as she held tightly on to him. She was clearly terrified, and shaking like crazy.

"It's okay, it's okay I'm here" he said to her

"Who are you?" her father repeated angrily

"what the hell did you do to her?" Squall yelled, ignoring the guys question

"None of your damn business! And you still didn't answer my question. What have you got to do with my daughter?"

"I'm a friend"

"A friend huh. She doesn't have Friends. I'm guessing you've got to be the latest boyfriend"

"No. Like I said I'm.."

"Her friend, I know. See I just figured, you actually want to spend time with her, you must be getting something out of it, why else would you want to be around that little…"

" I would not finish that sentence if I were you" Squall said trying to control his temper. _'What the hell gives him the right to speak about her like that. This guy is a lunatic'_

The man took a few steps towards Squall and as he did, Rinoa ran around so she was standing behind Squall, protected from her father.

"Stay away from me!" she said tearfully

"you're coming back right now" the man stated

"No, I'm not. I'm not going back with you!"

The man took a determined few steps towards Rinoa but he found himself face to face with Squall.

"I wont let you take her" Squall said "And I wont let you hurt her, not again. I'm not even going to let you near her, I know all about you, what you're like…"

"Oh let me guess. She told you her little sob story about how she had such a bad life blah blah blah." he narrowed his eyes at Rinoa "Never could just keep your mouth shut could you, you whiney little bitch"

Squall, who was now working very hard to fight the urge to snap this psychos neck, said "I recommend you really watch what you say"

The man just laughed "You think I'm going to listen to you. Are you trying to scare me? You're just a kid"

"And you're a raving lunatic"

"You know this really is none of your business. This is between me and Rinoa"

"I'm not leaving you alone with her, you'll hurt her and then…"

"And then what. What exactly do you plan to do?"

"If you hurt her, you don't even want to know what I'll do to you"

"See" the man said glaring at Rinoa "See all the trouble you've caused now."

"Don't blame this on her, this your fault"

Rinoas dad rolled his eyes "Of course it is. Because that's what she told you. I'm the bad guy right? I've never done anything she didn't deserve. Infact I thought maybe she'd learn something, if she'd have known her place.."

"Wait, so what you did to her all those years you were just 'putting her in her place', doing this for her own good? You self righteous son of a bitch"

"look I don't even no who you are, and I frankly don't care. Now Rinoa get you're damn stuff and get come home. Don't make me drag you out of here"

"I'm not…I'm not going with you. I'm staying here"

A look of fury spread over the guys face "How dare you disobey me, you arrogant little bitch! Your mother would be ashamed of you, I, m glad hse never had to see you grow up into this"

Squall saw on Rinoas face how much hurt that comment had caused, probably more pain than any physical attack would have caused. She dropped to the floor and burst into tears. And Squall just couldn't take it. All this guy seemed to do was reduce Rinoa to tears and Squall couldn't stand to see her cry, it hurt him. So without thinking at all of the consequences he reached out and punched Rinoas dad in the face pretty hard.

"Squall!" Rinoa cried, sounding pretty shocked

"you little bastard!" her dad yelled while blood dripped from his nose

"oops. Sorry" Squall said sarcastically

"You think you're so clever? I can press charges against you for assault you know."

"you know what, you do that. You call the police and tell them I hit you. I'll tell them why, how seriously do you think the police would take you abusing your daughter her whole life?"

Rinoas father was about to speak when Selphie and Zell dashed into the office an instructor and a few eager students in toe

"What's going on, we heard the yelling all the way downstairs!" Zell said "Hey who's this guy"

"Rin, are you okay?" Selphie asked noticing her friend crying. She ran over to her and hugged her.

"What is going on? The Instructor asked

"One of your students assaulted me" Rinoas dad stated angrily

"Squall.." the instructor sighed

"I didn't have a choice, he deserved it"

"it wasn't his fault" Rinoa sobbed "he was trying to help me"

"I'm going to get you out of here okay" Selphie said leading her friend to the elevator

"Good" the instructor said

"Just one thing" Rinoa said weakly before leaving "please get him" she pointed at her father "out of here, and don't let him come back"

"I think you should leave" The instructor said to Rinoas dad "And Squall, I'll wait for headmaster Cid to deal with you….."

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It had been a couple of hours since the whole incident when Rinoa finally worked up the courage to go and see Squall. She had no idea what to say, how to thank him for what he had done for her, and she also had no idea whether or not he'd got in any kind of trouble over the whole thing. Nervously she raised her hand an knocked quietly on his door.

After a few seconds later he called out "Yeh, who is it?"

"Um, it's me, Rinoa"

The door opened and Rinoa found she actually couldn't look at Squall for some reason, so she dropped her eyes downwards immediately.

"what's up?" he said

"can I… come in?"

Squall gestured for her to go in and then shut the door behind her.

"Are you alright?" she asked him.

"I guess"

"Did you get…into trouble?"

"Yup, suspended actually, I got suspended"

"But you were only trying to help me"

Squall shrugged "Cid didn't really see it that way, plus its not the first time I've been in trouble lately. I've been hauled in twice for attacking Seifer and now your Dad, I'm lucky I didn't get kicked out"

"I'm so sorry Squall, this is all my fault" Rinoa looked like she was about to cry. "Nothing you can do now. So how are you? Is your dad gone?"

"Yeh, he's gone. And I'm…I'm gonna go too I think"

"you're going back with that psycho??"

"No. I'm just not staying here anymore"

"Don't be ridiculous. You can't leave"

"Why is it ridiculous?"

"Where would you even go?"

"I don't know Squall I just…" she sat down on the edge of his bed and out her head in her hands " I just can't stay here"

"Why not?"

"Because I have done nothing but cause trouble since the moment I got here" Rinoa realised that she had infact failed in controlling her tears, as they were now dripping down her cheeks.

"That's not true" Squall said sitting next to her

"Yes it is. I mean look at you, I got you suspended"

"No, you didn't I got my self suspended"

"But it was because of me"

"Don't blame yourself, I don't blame you"

"I…I still cant believe you punched my dad"

"It's not like I had a choice, I…" Squall said defensively

"No, I mean, I was just surprised. No ones ever stuck up for me like that before"

Squalls placed his fingertips on one of the bruises that had appeared on Rinoas cheekbones "Does it hurt?"

"Not really, I'm kind of used to it". It was not until then she realised just how incredibly close to Squall she was leaning. She could feel his breath on her face.

"I should…I should go" she said

"Rinoa…don't leave" Squall said seriously

"Why?"

And not having any other answer to give Squall leant down, brushed a few strands of hair away from her face and kissed her……..

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**Omg! He kissed her. Damn she's so lucky hehe! So how will Rinoa react? it may not be exactly how you'd think. But come on, did you really think I'd tell you in this chapter I'm a cliff hanger bitch!hehehehe So keep reading, theres only 2 or 3 chapters to go! Please let me know what you think. Thanks y'all, peace and light xx**


	15. The complex simple soloution

**Disclaimer: I don't own final fantasy 8.or the characters. C'mon if I owned squall do you really think I'd be sitting here, writing fanfic? I'd be….well never mind xx**

**A/N: hey another chapter! Ok I know last chapter I said it would be like 2-3 chapters more but I had some new brainwaves on the story and now it will be longer. Lol it can be as long as people want as long as people read, I'll keep writing! Anyway this chapter is for my lovely reviewers of chapter 14; Sayuri21, crazy turkey, rinnyheartillyizawesome, RinNoMiko, draven nightly, the wonderful nobody, lilnaych and zellycat.**

**So squall kissed Rinoa huh, wonder how that will effect things and what will happen now. Read on my lovely rockstar-readers….peace and light xx**

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He actually kissed her. Kissed her!

'_Why the hell did I do that????' _he thought as he quickly pulled away from Rinoa to see she had a pretty shocked look on her face.

'umm" she said blinking a few times "I um…I should….umm…go" she stood up slowly as if she was in some kind of daze and headed for the door "I'll erm…talk to you later" and with that she left the room and shut the door behind her

'_Damn it! I'm such an idiot! That was so inappropriate. She's going to hate me now'_

in frustration and anger Squall reached out and punched the wall in front of him making a loud thudding sound echo through the room. He instantly regretted it though, because all it did was make his knuckles hurt. Tiny drops of blood trickled from the red skin and down his hand.

'_Well I'm just full of stupid decisions. I cant believe I kissed her. Why would I do that? I probably just confused her. She's probably confused enough after that whole thing with her father and I've just gone and made it so much worse. I really am stupid….'_

There was a knocking on the door of his room, interrupting his thoughts.

"come back later" he called. He was seriously not in the mood for seeing anyone right now. He just couldn't handle being social after everything

'_punched someone in the face, got suspended, drove away the girl I seriously like. What happened to self control..?'_

The knocking came again. "I said come back later" Squall called again

.But the knocking continued. _'Fine I'll answer the damn door'_

He flung the door open and non to cheerily said "what". But then he saw who it was. Rinoa. He hadn't been expecting that.

"Rinoa. I…" but he never actually got to finish his sentence.

Rinoa reached out, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. For quite a long time.

After a few minutes Squall broke away from the kiss "um…right"

He looked into Rinoas eyes and could see she was obviously pretty worried by what she'd just done, her dark eyes were searching his face for some kind of response.

Squall did seriously not understand what this all meant. Did this mean she actually liked him? But if she did, why did she freak out when he kissed her just then? Then again, did he really care if any of this made sense or not? He grabbed her hand and pulled her into his room, shutting the door behind her. He leant her body against the door and started kissing her again. He ran his hand down the side of her neck and across her shoulder amazed at how warm and soft her skin was and he could feel her running her fingers through his hair. He slid his tongue between her lips and a slight shiver went down his spine when it met hers. Somehow this all felt so right. Rinoa ran her hand over squalls shoulders, slipping off his jacket, as Squall gently kissed the side of her neck.

"wait.." Rinoa suddenly said

Squall froze _'Uh-oh. This isn't gonna be good. I let this go way to far'_

He broke away from her and turned around, his back now to her. "I'm sorry"

"Don't be" Rinoa said a little breathlessly "Squall, look, this is just really really complicated, and I don't want us to do something that we may regret. I wish it wasn't so complicated, but it is.."

"Believe me I know that" Squall said quietly. It was true that since he'd met Rinoa things had just become increasingly more complicated.

"I should tell you something" Rinoa said slowly" It's just that…"

_'I know exactly whats coming, man is this gonna hurt'_

"this isn't what you want" Squall finsihed for her

"No…it's the opposite"

The opposite? Never mind this situation being complicated, Squall had lost track of what was going on completely.

Rinoa took a long, deep breath "this is exactly what I want, it's exactly what I've wanted for a while now, that's what's so complicated. I like you Squall, I mean…really like you"

Squall was stunned. Was she really saying what he thought she was saying? Did she feel the same way about him as he did about her?But how could that make sense, if she liked him, why would what had just happened be a problem?

"All right" was all he managed to say.

"and, what just happened…" Rinoa went on "it only made me want you more. And its too hard to want someone who you know is never going to want you back.."

Squall turned around to face Rinoa.He knew exactly how hard it was to want someone you couldnt have. Did she really have absolutely no idea how he felt about her?

_Guess I have no choice but to tell her the truth, after all she told me how she felt'_

"Rinoa, I do want you"

"Yeh, maybe right now, but... say something had happened, afterwards you wouldnt be interested and i can't take that."

"You don't get it do you?" Squall said pulling Rinoa closer to him "I'm…I'm crazy about you. I have been for a while and it's been driving me insane, but now we have a chance..."

"What about Tanya?" Rinoa said quickly

"What about her?" Once again Squall had completely forgotten about her "Rinoa, I never really cared about her, not the way I care about you"

"Really?"Rinoa asked sounding very suprised

"Really"

"But…Squall she's still your Girlfriend. And before anything can even possibly happen between us, before we can even consider any of this you should talk to her. We cant carry on behind her back, that's what Seifer did to me and I don't think anyone should have to go through that"

"I'll talk to her. I'll go find her. But promise me something"

"What?"

"Just promise me you'll stay here, and wait for me to come back so we can talk"

"All right, I promise"

"I'll be quick" Squall said as he picked his jacket up and threw it back on, heading out of the door.

'_This is so strange' _ he thought to himself as he headed for the cafeteria, thinking Tanya may be there _'Rinoa and I may actually have a chance. I mean I guess this is a little hard on Tanya, but then again how fair was it to carry on with her anyway, I never felt anything that strongly for her, not that I dislike her but…'_

"Yo Squall" Zell said passing Squall in the corridor "What's up?"

"Nothing. Um have you seen Tanya?"

"No man, I was just in the caf and she wasn't there. She was up in the classroom earlier doing some study, she might still be there.. Oh yeh is it true you got suspended!??"

"Um yes" Squall said distractedly, he really wanted to find Tanya, the quicker he found her, the quicker he get all this over with

"Dude, why?"

"Because I punched Rinoas father in the face" Squall said bluntly

"Again, why?"

"Look Zell can we talk later, it's kind of a long story and I really need to find Tanya"

"Ok, Sure" Zell said.

Squall decided to head up to the classroom, hoping Tanya would be there.

'_Alright, what am I going to say to her' _Squall thought as he waited for the elevator to reach second floor _'Should I just be honest with her, tell her what's really going on. Then again isn't it a bit harsh to tell someone that you're breaking up with them because you finally have a chance with the person you like more. God, this is complicated. I guess I thought that if I ever got a chance with Rinoa, everything would be simple, that would be the simple solution to all my problems, but things are still pretty complex. What the hell am I going to tell Tanya?'_

But as soon as Squall walked into the classroom his thoughts stopped completely dead in their tracks. Tanya was in fact in the classroom as Squall had hoped, but he had not hoped, or been in anyway prepared, for what he saw.

Tanya was sitting on one of the desks, her arms wrapped round the guy that she was kissing. A guy who looked a hell of a lot like Seifer Almasy!

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God damn it! Tanya and Seifer??? this is like a soap. Hahahahahahaha so what will squall say, what will Tanya say, what idiotic thing will seifer do next. Keep reading peeps! Xx thanks xxx


	16. so close, but still so far

**Disclaimer: I do not own ff8. Still.**

**A/n: well here we go with another chapter. Ok before I get into this chapter I need a little help from y'all. See I have a plot idea but it could work as either a sequel to this, or just a post game story. The difference would be that either all the references to the relationship would be made to either how they got together in this or how they got together in the game. Now because of the plot of the story, it may be slightly easier to make it a sequel to this, but its up to all you guys so please let me know what you think. I only ask now because it will in a way effect the ending of this story slightly so would love all your opinions. But anyway back to this story. So seifer is a man-slut! Him and Tanya oh dear dear me. And squall and Rinoa my my. Well I wonder were it will go from here, read on and see. Thanks to my lovely reviewers of the last chapter rinnyheartillyizawesome, crazyturkey, draven nightly, zellycat, lilnaych, RinNoMiko, Xx phoenix blade xX, Emodiva and renegade seraph. Hope y'all like the chapter and merry Christmas**

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"This is unbelievable!" Squall said which caused Tanya and Seifer to finally spring apart.

"Oh my god Squall!" Tanya cried "I'm so sorry"

"Hey Squall" Seifer said casually

"What the hell is this?" Squall asked. Partly he was mad, partly he was just shocked. Tanya and Seifer?

"Squall I can explain" Tanya said, pushing Seifer away from her

"Don't bother, it's pretty clear what's going on"

"Please just give me a chance. It was just this one time, and I was just upset…"

"So you thought this would help?" Squall snapped. He wasn't even entirely sure why he was so mad, he wasn't really deeply concerned about Tanya. It was more Seifer, and the fact that he seemed to constantly do whatever he wanted without any from of consideration for anyone else.

"I am sorry Squall. But, this isn't entirely my fault.."

"Oh I know. I blame Seifer too. C'mon Tanya, you know exactly what he's like, how could you even.."

"I just wasn't thinking." Tanya cried "But this your fault too"

"you're blaming me?" Squall said in disbelief

"Partly, yeh. Don't you understand how hard its been for me?"

"What?"

"Do you think it's easy being with someone who clearly wants to be with someone else?"

"What are you talking about?" Squall asked, even though he had an idea he already knew

"Rinoa, I'm talking about Rinoa. I know you've spent the whole time we were together thinking about her, wishing you could be with her instead."

A little alarm went off in his head. _'she knows? What should I do, admit it or just try and deny it. I suppose there's not much point denying it anymore'_

"You know about that?"

"Oh please" Seifer laughed, suddenly inviting himself to join the conversation "of course she knows. It's pretty damn obvious"

"oh shut up" Squall snapped "nobody asked you"

Seifer laughed again "wow, calm down man"

"shut the hell up. This is between me and Tanya"

"Really. I wasn't aware there was that much of a 'you and Tanya,', given that I was the one she was just…"

"Shut the fuck up Seifer. All you do is cause trouble"

Seifer let out a low whistle "you seem to have a real problem with me Squall"

"really, do you think so?" Squall said sarcastically. He was starting to find it very hard to put up with Seifer at all. He was arrogant and irritating. What the hell did Tanya see in him. What the hell had Rinoa seen in him?

"Now Squall, I wonder what that problem might be?" Seifer said with a grin "I've got to wonder if this is still all to do with Rinoa"

"Leave Rinoa out of this. This is about you and Tanya"

"is it really? I think maybe it's jealousy"

"Jealousy? I'm jealous of you? You're not as good as you think you are Seifer. You're a lying cheating jerk"

Seifer just gave another of his irritating little laughs and Tanya was watching the two men nervously.

"you're a hypocrite" Seifer jeered "you're just the same as me"

"I am nothing like you Seifer"

"you'd be surprised. See you call me a cheat and a liar, but I know your no better."

'And why would you say that"

"please, I'm not an idiot. Clearly something happened between you and Rinoa"

"What?" how the hell did Seifer know

"I saw her, going into your room Squall then a little later you come up here to talk to Tanya. My guess is you came to break up with her."

Squall was shocked. How did Seifer get it so right? Since when was Seifer smart?

"You were coming to break up with me?" Tanya said sadly

"yeh, but at least I was actually going to break up with you, you were just with Seifer behind my back"

"do you really care?" Tanya asked "I mean you clearly never really liked me, so what does it matter that I kissed Seifer?"

"if you knew I never really felt that way about you then why did you stick with me, why didn't you just break up with me then get with Seifer?"

"I thought maybe, after a while you'd accept me, accept that you couldn't have Rinoa and then you'd move on and we'd be happy. Except I guess you can have Rinoa…"

"Of course he can. She was easy" Seifer laughed "even easier than you Tanya."

Tanya just shook her head and then ran from the room.

'_Well that went well'_ Squall thought to himself. But at least it was all over. He was free to go back to Rinoa now. But as he turned to leave the room Seifer grabbed his arm

"you really think your so much better than me don't you?"

"get off me Seifer"

"Or what?"

"what the hell is your problem Seifer. I mean seriously? All this, Rinoa, Tanya what is all about?"

"I have no idea what you mean" Seifer grinned

"oh come on, you went with Rinoa to get at me, you found out I was then with her so you decided to move onto Tanya? Did you do that to get at me too?"

"No, to be honest, that was just fun"

"And what about Rinoa, you went to all that trouble just to annoy me?"

"it was just to good of an opportunity to pass up. It was seriously easy. So Squall don't make the mistake of assuming that now you are with her you're gonna stay that way for long, because that chick moves from guy to guy"

"oh yeh, you can talk. God knows how many people your with"

"you're just jealous, you cant get any. I mean you got nothing out of Tanya. Then again Rinoa, you probably will, not that I'd say it's entirely worth the effort. But I suppose she's not bad for a cheap…"

Once again Seifer did not get to finish his sentence. Because despite the numerous warnings Squall had received for what had been labelled 'violent conduct' he found himself punching Seifer straight in the face. Again.

"Oh that is it" Seifer said wiping the dripping blood from his nose. He swung his fist and it connected with Squalls jaw. And before long it escalated into a full on fight. Seifer got various hits on Squalls face and Seifers nose was probably broken the amount of damage it took.

The last time he stumbled backwards grabbing his nose and placing a hand on his for head

"Stay the hell away from me , stay the hell away from Rinoa and stop interfering in my life or you will regret it" Squall said before storming out of the room.

He made his way through the corridors fully aware that people were giving him strange looks due to the blood dripping from his nose and the black eye that was starting to show.

He tried to calm his temper slightly before he went back to see Rinoa. HE was praying that she had waited there like she'd said she would, because Squall figured that one more thing would probably push him over the edge. Despite his best efforts, he was still seething when he made it into his dorm room and slammed the door behind him. Rinoa who had in fact waited for him, and was sitting on his bed jumped up as soon as she saw him

"oh my god, Squall what happened?" she asked, placing her hand on his bruised jawbone

"Seifer, that's what happened" he said moving away from her

"Seifer? I thought you were going to see Tanya"

"I was. She was with Seifer"

"That's awful. So you got into fight with him? You should have just walked away, look what he did to you"

"I'm fine" Squall said stiffly

"your bleeding, and bruised. You're not fine Squall"

"yes I am. And I wasn't just gonna let him stand there and say whatever the hell he wants about me, I wasn't going to run away"

"But Seifers and idiot, you know that"

"Exactly, so he needed a good smack in the face"

"Seifer is always going to be Seifer"

"Are you defending him?"

"no I'm not. I'm just saying Squall, you shouldn't have let him get to you. I mean this isn't the first time you've fought with him, you need to control it a little"

Squall was becoming increasingly annoyed now. Not particularly by Rinoa, but he was at such a point that anything would annoy him. _'is she telling me I should have just let him go on, that I was wrong for fighting him'?_

"No it's not. But you can't really talk. I fought with him, but you slept with him"

Rinoa looked instantly shocked and hurt "what has that got to do with anything?"

"you were talking about control, all am saying is I don't think you're the best person to talk about that, you didn't exactly make it hard for him"

Rinoa blinked at him a few times. "y-you know what Squall, I think I'm going to go seeing as that's clearly what you really think about me." tears started to roll down her cheeks and she turned her back, walked out and slammed the door.

And Squall realised he had completely and absolutely blown it. He hadn't really meant it, at all. Seifer in a way was still messing with him, without even being there. He had just been so mad he wasn't thinking straight and with one little sentence, he'd drove away the person he really cared about. Silently he hoped and prayed that there was something he could do to make it better. And God help Seifer if there wasn't.

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**Oh my god, Squall as hot as you are, you are a complete moron! How dare you be so mean to her! And don't blame seifer it was you, all you. Hehehe. So has squall blown it for good, or does he still have a chance. Well you'll find out next chapter. Y'all review please and let me no what you think of the chapter plus about the sequel thing. Thanks you guys and merry Christmas again. Peace and light xx**


	17. good things come to those who wait

**Disclaimer: I still don't own Final fantasy 8 or its characters. I own this plot, but that's about all. And its more like a soap. So technically I own a soap. Teehee**

**A/N: well well well another chapter. This story has got either 3 or four to go including this one. I am very sad that it is nearly over because I love writing it. And to anyone who enjoys reading it and if anyone will miss it, fear not in the new year, the sequel will be starting woot woot! Anywho back to the chapter. Thanks to all my reviewers of the last chapter draven nightly, crazy turkey, lilnaych, emodiva, rinnnyheartillyizawesome, deceitful sorceress, zellycat and sayuri21. So last chapter squall was a moron who needs a good slapping and he blew his chance with Rinoa. Well he has some major grovelling to do me thinks if he wants to get Rinoa to forgive him. Will she? Will read on and see my lovely lovely readers and merry Christmas xx**

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Rinoa ran down the hallway, heading for her own room, tears clouding her vision. How could he have even said that to her? As she ran, too hurt and confused to look where she was going she bumped into Irvine and Selphie. Literally.

"Ah! Watch were you going little lady" Irvine said as he stumbled back a few stops

"Sorry Irvine" she sniffled

"Rin, what's wrong" Selphie asked seeing the state her friend was in

"Nothing. I just…It's squall. He just…he was so horrible to me. Well first he was nice and then he was just horrible. I can't believe what he said to me."

"Look whatever he said Rinoa, I'm sure he didn't mean to hurt you. The thing about Squall is half the things he feels he doesn't say and half the things he says he doesn't mean."

"Still…" Rinoa heard Squall calling her name from further down the corridor _'damn, he's coming after me' _"I've gotta go" she told Selphie, starting to run again.

A few seconds later Squall came rushing past Irvine and Selphie too

"Squall" Selphie said stopping him in his tracks "what on earth is going on?"

"Have you seen Rinoa?" he asked frantically

"She just went rushing past us. Skittered off at the sound of your voice. What did you say to her you moron"Irvine said, fixing the cowboy hat he always wore

"I don't have time to explain, just tell me what way she went"

Irvine and Selphie both pointed down the corridor and Squall went running off too.

"This place is crazy" Irvine muttered to himself

When Rinoa got to her room, she slammed the door behind her and threw herself on her bed in tears. This had been the day from hell. First her father had come, done exactly what he usually did, yell and scream and hit her. And she had only narrowly avoided having to go back to Deling with him. And that was because of Squall. At the thought of Squall she started to cry even more. She didn't understand what the hell was going on at all with him anymore. He had been so good and so brave and so heroic in protecting her from her father and then he told that he was crazy about her but then he had gone and said something so horrible to her. As she lay there sobbing there was a loud knocking on her door. She knew who it was going to be straight away.

"Go away" she called

"Rinoa, please let me in. I need to speak to you" Squall called through the door

"I think you've said enough" she called back

"Rinoa. Come on, just open the door. I just want to talk"

Realising that he wasn't actually going to go away Rinoa flung open the door

"I have nothing to say to you Squall" she said starting to close the door again, but Squall put his arm up against it, preventing her from closing it

"I don't believe that"

"I'm tired of you confusing me Squall and that is all you have done." she said turning from the door and walking across the room. The only reason she actually let him in the room was that she didn't need anymore of her business floating round the hallways of Garden.

"I'm sorry, okay I am really sorry. But don't you think you're over reacting a bit, it was one comment"

"Over reacting?" Rinoa echoed in disbelief. "No Squall I don't think I was over reacting. You basically called me easy and cheap"

"No I didn't"

"Not in so many words, but you did. That's how you made me feel. And I have felt like that enough. Don't you think that that is exactly how I felt after that whole thing with Seifer. Don't you think I felt stupid and cheap myself?" Rinoas emotions all mixed together, the confusion and the upset and turned into a sort of irrational anger

"And then I had everyone in Garden whispering about me and they were all saying all sorts of things, whatever you can imagine, about me so then I had all them calling me cheap and easy, all in different words but the same point. But you know what Squall I didn't really care that much because I knew what happened really and you know why else I didn't care, because there was only one person in those whole place whose opinion of me I cared about and it was you" No sooner had Rinoa finished her sentence she broke down completely into tears and buried her head in her hands. This was all too much for her

"Look Rinoa" Squall said, the guilt he was obviously feeling evident in his tone "I am really really sorry. I didn't mean it… I was just pissed off and I wasn't thinking."

"Even so, that had to come from somewhere. Somewhere inside you, you have that opinion of me"

"No, I don't" Squall protested now starting to sound a little angry "Why aren't you listening to me"

"Why should I.I don't have to listen to you. I'm leaving" Rinoa said heading for the door but Squall reached out and grabbed her by the arm

"Like hell you are" he said pulling her back "I'm not letting you leave until you hear me out"

"get off me" she sobbed

"No."

Rinoa started trying to break away from his grip and she waved her arm around trying to get him to let go. She eventually managed to get him to let go of her arm, but as he was standing behind her he quickly wrapped both of his arms around her shoulders, preventing her from making any kind of movement at all. _'Damn it this guy is way too strong.' _she thought to herself as she tried a few times to struggle out of his grip, but eventually she just gave up, there was no way she was strong enough.

"Okay, okay. Just listen to me" Squall said resting his head on her shoulder "I am sorry. I never meant to hurt you I didn't mean what I said at all. And the only place it came from was jealousy. Regardless of whether you liked him or he liked you or not he still had you and I didn't, and I was jealous you still wanted him more."

Rinoa couldn't actually see Squalls face, but she could tell from his voice that he was being sincere

"I…I…had no idea"

"Of what. That I was jealous?"

"I didn't really know you felt anything for me until earlier"

"Why do you think I did everything I did? Trying to wan you about Seifer, protecting you from your father I did all that because deep down I hoped that would give me at least a chance for you to see me the way you saw him"

"The way I saw him was wrong. I thought he was so many things that he turned out not to be. I should have listened to you…"

"Maybe. But it doesn't matter now. Rinoa I meant what I said before I am crazy about you, and you told me you felt the same so why are we fighting this"

" I don't think you know how you feel about me. It seems to keep changing…and I'm just so confused"

Squall tightened the grip he had around her shoulders and started to kiss the side of her neck, working his way down to her shoulder, and then back up again to her ear. Rinoa felt a tingle shoot through her body every time his lips brushed against her skin. Given the grip he had on her there was no way she could have put up any resistance against anything he did. But that was okay, because she had absolutely no reason to want to resist this.

After a few seconds he whispered into her ear "I love you Rinoa"

As soon as she heard this, tears started to roll down her cheeks again, but this time they were tears of happiness. He had told her that he loved her. Rinoa had spent her whole life hoping that someone would tell her they loved her, hoping that someone could just make her forget everything she had gone through in her life, someone who was strong and could protect her. She had thought naively that that was Seifer at first, but now she realised that Squall was really everything she wanted. He loosened his arms around her shoulders and turned her to face him, bending down and kissing her. At first there was a reluctance in the way he kissed her but Rinoa reached round his neck and pulled him closer to her, deepening and intensifying the kiss.

Breaking away after a few minutes she blinked a few times and said "I love you too"

A smile spread across Squalls defined, handsome features that made him look even more gorgeous to her than he normally did. He leant down and kissed her again, this time without any hesitation and with a hell of a lot more passion than she had ever felt before. He wrapped his arms around her waist pulling her closer and closer to him. There was just something so possessive about the way he did everything, something that gave Rinoa the sense that he had absolutely no intention -after spending this long getting her-of letting her go. And this made her pretty damn happy. She just allowed herself to trust him completely and allowed herself to get completely lost in his arms and lost in the kiss. She felt herself blush slightly as his hands ran under her shirt and across her stomach sending waves of sensation through her body. This was all moving pretty fast, but she was okay with it, her body, her mind and her heart all seemed to be agreeing that this was exactly right even as she felt her shirt being lifted up over her head and even as she felt her self being softly laid down on her bed. This all felt right, because she felt something she had never felt before, not with Seifer and not with anyone else; she felt completely safe..

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**Calm it you two! Haha. Woot! So they are together, so like I said not long to go now. Just a few outstanding issues that need to be dealt with and then a chapter or two to fill in some of the time between this and the sequel. This will probably be the last time I update this before Christmas because I've gotta work on my other one but I'll be back on it soon. the next chapter will be called 'darling, so there you are' and willl be done soon!Oh btw y'all want to know anything about the sequel or you want to just wait and see? Thanks for reading, review and let me know what you think and merry Christmas. **


	18. Darling, so there you are

**Disclaimer: I still do not own final fantasy 8! I do own this story though which is more than I owned before I started this story. Which is good I guess**

**A/N: heya! Sorry this took a while to get updated. You know Christmas and all. And then my computer was being evil and then the site message system went down I think and then my internet crashed and arrrg. But yay finally here it is. Thanks to all my reviewers of the last chapter zellycat, crazy turkey, rinnyheartillyizawesome, Emodiva, SJsilver, draven nightly, lilnaych and renegade seraph. You guys rock! So last chapter, lil of bit of action there with the squall and Rinoa :p. so lets see what happens next. Please read and review guys xx**

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**S**unlight streamed through the windows of the room, bathing everything in morning glow. Rinoa turned over a few times, trying to keep her closed eyes from the sudden light but eventually sat up and flicked her eyes open. Something inside felt different-for some reason she felt incredibly…happy. Glancing at the clock she noted it was 11am.

'_That's pretty late' _she thought to herself, still trying to figure out what it was she was feeling in side _'Never usually sleep in this late.' _

Her reflection in the mirror across the room caught her eye. She had a bruise on her cheekbone and her bottom lip was cut slightly. Suddenly the sight brought all the memories of the day before back. Her father and ….squall!

Then she realised why she felt so happy. It was all because of last night. Lying back down, she thought dreamily about what had happened.

'_He told me he loves me. Loves me. Me!' _Rinoa still couldn't believe it had all happened. It seemed way too good to be true. Squall Leonhart had told her that he loved her. This was actually the first time Rinoa had really thought about it and let it sink in, as last night after he told her, they were both a little ….busy.

'_I can't believe it. I had no idea that he felt that way. I spent such a long time falling for him, but constantly thinking I had no chance. And it turns out he liked me all along'_

But then something that occurred to Rinoa that worried her slightly. Were was Squall now? She remembered that he was definitely there when she fell asleep but now he was nowhere. A horrible thought flashed in her head _'what if I dreamt it all. It does seem like a really really good dream' _But glancing around the floor she saw that various items of her outfit from the previous night were lying in random places across the floor _'Ok' _she thought, blushing a little _'Not a dream'_

But she still had no idea where Squall was. Had he…changed his mind?

Getting up she jumped in the shower and then got dressed, deciding she would go and look for Squall.

The first place she tried was his dorm room but after knocking a few times she guessed he probably wasn't there. The next place that logically occurred to her was the cafeteria.

Scanning the crowds in the ever-busy cafeteria, she didn't spot Squall, but she did see Selphie, Irvine and Zell at the usual table at the back of the room

"Hey you guys" she said approaching the table "Have any of you seen Squall?"

Selphie and Zell exchanged glances and both grinned slightly.

"What are you smiling at?" Rinoa asked suspiciously. She knew that news in Garden travelled fast, but surely news of her and Squall couldn't have gotten around just yet.

Zell nodded his head towards her, and turning around she saw why they were grinning. Because standing about 2 feet behind her was Squall. How had she not seen him?

"Hey. There you are" she said suddenly over come with a feeling of shyness for some reason

"Hey Rinoa"

"Oh…umm..yeh" Rinoa heard Irvine say from behind her "Selphie, we have that thing to do, in umm that place you know"

"Ohhhhhhhhh" Selphie said "Yeh, um we should go….go do that um that thing. That also involves Zell"

"Huh?" Zell said still shoving a hot dog in his mouth "I don't ..ah!" Irvine had promptly grabbed him by his collar and was now dragging him away from the table "talk to you two later" he called as he dragged Zell father away

"That was weird" Rinoa muttered to herself as she sat down in one of the now empty seats at the table, followed by Squall who sat in the seat opposite her. For a few seconds neither of them said anything at all. There was a sort of tension between them for some reason

"I've been looking for you" Rinoa said not knowing what else to say

"I decided to come and get some coffee" he said gesturing to the cup in front of him

"How come you didn't wake me up?" Rinoa said

Squall looked down for a few seconds and then looked up and smiled for the first time "You looked too cute sleeping. Besides…" his smile turned a little mischievous "I figured you'd be tired"

"Oh. I thought maybe you'd changed your mind about…me and everything"

Squall shook his head "God No." he reached out across the table and brushed a strand of her dark hair behind her ear "I meant what I said." he lowered his voice slightly "I love you"

"Good. I love you too. So…you're taking me out later" she grinned

"I am?"

"Yes, on a date, to celebrate"

"Where am I taking you then?"

"You can decide" she said smiling mischievously before reaching out and taking the cup from in front of him just as he reached for it. "and you're giving me this"

"Oh, great" Squall grinned "we've been dating like 3 minutes and you're already taking my stuff"

Just the way he smiled at her made her thoroughly glad there was a table between the two of them otherwise she might actually have jumped him. Which would not be good in a cafeteria full of people. Instead she leant across the table and kissed him. A kiss which lasted until she heard a familar voice from across the room cry "oh hell yeah!"

Breaking from the kiss she turned round to see it was Zell, who was standing watching them from a table not to far away.

"Dude, you are so un-cool" Irvine shuddered shaking his head, while Selphie jumped up and down in little circles saying "Finally finally finally".

Rinoa couldn't help but smile. All her friends must have known before she and Squall did that they were right for each other and they must have felt as frustrated waiting as she had. But it had all been worth it in the end. Unfortunately Seifer chose that moment to make another one of his visits.

"Well aren't you two cute" he said sarcastically.

Rinoa could see the anger spread across Squalls face as soon as he saw Seifer and the last thing she wanted was for them to have another fight

"Go away Seifer" she said "just leave us alone"

"Well that's not very nice is it?"

"What do you want?"

" I really truly only wanted to come and say congratulations"

"R-really?" Rinoa asked a little shocked. Was Seifer actually showing some human decency?

"Well yeh. I mean you both deserve it. I mean Squall…..congratulations on finally getting laid and Rinoa congratulations on getting one step further in the plan you obviously have to sleep with everyone in Garden"

Rinoa knew she shouldn't have expected anything more than that from Seifer.

"your such an idiot Seifer"

"And after I was so nice to you" Seifer laughed "I mean seriously Rinoa you are going through guys pretty well. You decided who you're moving onto next?"

Squall stood up so fast that he knocked over the chair he had been sitting on "Get out of here Seifer" he said through gritted teeth

"you got a problem Squall?" Seifer asked squaring up to him.

Rinoa could see where this was heading, so quickly she stood up and placed her self between the two men "Stop it both of you!"

She turned to Squall and placed her hand on his chest "Don't let him wind you up Squall"

"Ah no, come on." Seifer said from behind her "Let him do whatever he wants, I'll give him another black eye to match his first one."

"Shut up Seifer!"

"Squall, listen to me" Rinoa said "Don't let him get to you, he's trying to wind you up so you'll hit him and you're already in enough trouble. If you hit someone else they might throw you out for good. Forget what he said"

"I don't care about what he said about me but I'm not letting him speak to you like that"

"Forget it Squall. It doesn't matter to me. It matters more to me that he doesn't get his way, which he will if you hit him"

Squall looked from Rinoa to Seifer and then back at Rinoa "Fine" he said "but we're getting out of here"

Squall grabbed Rinoa by the hand and headed for the exit of the caf. But before they left, they heard a commotion. There was a large thud, followed by the sound of everyone in the room gasping loudly.

Squall and Rinoa turned around to see Seifer laying on the floor holding his hand over his nose and Zell standing triumphantly over him. "Take that. And keep your mouth shut in future" Zell said.

Squall couldn't help but laugh a little. Seifer had got what he deserved without Squall having to do anything. And he figured Zell could probably talk his way out of it somehow.

Squall and Rinoa walked in silence down the hallway from the caf until Rinoa said "You really hate him don't you?"

"Seifer? Yeh, can you blame me?"

"No, he's a jerk"

"You have no idea" Squall muttered "you don't know the half of it"

"Can I ask you something?" Rinoa said a little nervously

"I guess"

"When me and Seifer were together, and you really hated him and you fought with him, was that because of me?"

Squall sighed "Yeah. What he was doing, messing with you like that it was wrong. I mean, I guess I should probably tell you something about Seifer and I hope this doesn't hurt you too much but her never actually…liked you. He went out with you because he thought it would make me jealous, he knew that I liked you and that's why he did what he did. And I knew he was cheating on you, that's why I punched him"

"Wait so he asked me out because he wanted to make you jealous?"

Squall nodded.

"But I started going out with him not long after I got here so even back then you…you liked me"

"Yeh. There was just something from the first time I saw you"

"You know, I think there's a lot we should talk about."

"I guess so" Squall agreed

"But, you can tell me after 7"

"Why after 7?" Squall asked looking puzzled

"Because that's when your picking me up for our date"

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**So they are going on a date. Yes the next chapter is partly a Squinoa date. Yay Squinoa date. Well there are officially only two chapters of this story to go now and then e are into sequel territory. But yes let me know what you think of the chapter guys and I'll update this one soon xx**


	19. a guy, a girl and true loves first date

**Disclaimer: I don't own FF8. Still**

**A/n: Many thanks and much love to my chapter 18 reviewers rinnyheartillyizwesome, crazy turkey, Teresa, Sjsilver, EmoDiva, lilnaych, sooo, draven nightly and sayuri 21. wellity wellity a squinoa date I promised and a squinoa date it shall be. Now I know this story has been a little serious at most bits, but this chapter seeing as it's near the end is just nice and happy and cute, because to be honest, I think they deserve a little happiness. So I hope you'll enjoy. And omg I am so sad to say it because I really love this story but this is the 2nd to last chapter sob sob. There is this and then the last chapter is sort of an epilogue, kind of that links this and the coming sequel. But back to this one for now I hope you all enjoy it. Let me know what you think. **

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"**H**ow about this one?" Rinoa asked, holding up yet another outfit

"I suppose" Selphie nodded

"you think?" She asked sounding worried "You don't think it's to…you know…"

"No it's nice. But do you want to know what I do think?"

"What?"

"I think your worrying to much about it. Far too much"

"Selphie! It's our first date, I have to pick the perfect outfit. It has to be exactly right!"

"Why?" Selphie grinned "you know whatever you wear is just going to end up on his dorm room floor right?"

"Selphie!!"

"I'm sorry" Selphie laughed "But it's true. Plus Squall is like completely crazy about you it's not going to matter to him what you wear"

"I suppose" Rinoa sighed. Selphie was right. But still Rinoa wanted every single little thing to be perfect.

Eventually she decided on a floaty red dress that she had bought on one of her shopping trips to Timber. And she decided just in time as just as she finished getting ready there was a knocking on the door, and it was 7pm!

"Oh my god, that's him!" Rinoa squealed excitedly. She was excited and nervous all in one go. She desperately wanted this night to be the most perfect night of her whole life.

"Hey. ready to go?" Squall asked her when she opened the door

"Definitely" Rinoa smiled

"You look amazing" he said before pulling her in for a kiss

"So cute" Selphie sighed. Rinoa had completely forgotten she was even there. That was the effect Squall tended to have on her. When he was in the room she could actually not even think about anything else.

"Ok. Lets go" she said to Squall "Bye Selphie"

"So where are you taking me then?" Rinoa said when she and Squall got outside

"Well I'm not so great with dates so I'm keeping it very simple with Dinner and a movie. Sound okay?"

"Sounds perfect" Rinoa smiled. Still having trouble containing her excitement. "but…what do you mean you're not good with dates?"

"I haven't really been on many"

"Seriously?" Rinoa asked

"Yes. Why?" Squall asked looking kind of worried

"it's just really weird is all"

"Why is it weird?"

"Because…well…have you…not seen you. I would just have assumed you had girls throwing themselves at you all of the time what being so gorgeous and all"

"You're winding me up" Squall laughed

Rinoa shook her head and laughed herself "I'm not. But never mind. So dinner and a movie, which first?"

"Whichever you want. You can decide" Squall said as the two walked down the hallway hand in hand

"Hmmm…I think we should go to the movie first…then dinner" Rinoa decided

So not too much later they were at the movie theatre. Rinoas favourite thing about going to the movies was the popcorn. She loved popcorn. But this time was so much better. Because while she got to have popcorn she also got to sit in a darkened room with the most amazingly good looking and sweet guy. It was like her dream. _'Hell, whose dream isn't it' _she thought to herself as she sat down. Rinoa didn't actually know what movie they had come to see, but she didn't really care. She had not much intention of watching it. _'It's not like people got to movies on dates to actually watch the movies' _she couldn't help giggle to herself

"What?" Squall asked puzzled by her sudden laughing

"Nothing" Rinoa said innocently

Squall smiled "I'm not sure I trust you" he said with fake seriousness

Rinoa leant across and kissed him, the dark for some reason making everything feel so much better. She was so much more aware of everything, the feeling of his hand on the side of her face and the feeling of warmth between the two of them. It was almost like there was a sort of energy, pulling and holding them together.

"God , I love you" Squall said quietly, pulling away from the kiss for just a second

"I love you" Rinoa said pulling him back towards her.

Coming out of the movie theatre about an hour and a half later, Rinoa still had no idea what film they had seen. Probably because she hadn't seen any of it. At all. She had kind of gotten lost in that kiss. That kiss that seemed to just go on until the lights flicked back on and people started to leave.

Next on the agenda was dinner. So they went to the fanciest pace Balamb had to offer. It was pretty empty, given that not that many people lived in Balamb. There were a few other couples there, and there were one or two that Rinoa recognised to be garden students. Rinoa and Squall secured the table furthest away from everyone else, in a romantic little corner by the window that looked out onto Balamb harbour.

Rinoa knew they needed to talk. About everything, Seifer, her father, Tanya, everything that had gotten them to this point but she couldn't seem to bring it up, she didn't want to risk spoiling the atmosphere. Fortunately Squall brought it up for her

"Rin, can I ask you something?" he said, as they ate

"Sure. You can ask me anything"

"Did…did you love Seifer?"

Rinoa shook her head quickly "No. No way. I was seeing someone completely different to what he really was. I guess…" Rinoa didn't know exactly how to describe to Squall why she had been with Seifer, but she had to find a way to make him understand that she had never loved Seifer in the slightest "I guess…I was just blinded by him. I mean when I came here I guess I was looking for a way out and I thought that way out would be to find a hero almost. Someone I thought would protect me if I needed it. I thought that was Seifer. I thought because he was confident and strong that he was a good person, that he cared you know. But everything I thought he was, it turned out that that's what you were. And I feel stupid for wasting so much time with him. You were my hero Squall"

Squall smiled at her softly "you shouldn't blame yourself, for believing those things though, Seifer was acting. He was manipulating you, mostly just to hurt me"

"Did he think it would really hurt you that much for him to be with me"

"Yeh, he did. And for once he was right. I think he realised before I did that I felt something for you"

"I don't think he knew how I felt about you though. I think he just thought that if he told me all these horrible things it would make me hate you. But I never hated you. I mean even when I got angry at you for bad mouthing Seifer, it was just because deep inside I felt something for you that I couldn't explain and also I think I knew towards the end Seifer wasn't all he seemed, but I didn't want that to be true."

"Seifer…he's just an idiot. I know you didn't love him, but what he did must still have hurt you. I knew he was out to hurt me, I've known him practically my whole life and he's always hated me but it was wrong to mess with your emotions too. I mean he slept with you, just to hurt me. And unfortunately he got what he wanted, because it did hurt me a lot."

"That's, when I realised I think…that I liked you. I mean when you came to Seifers room that morning, I felt…guilty and that's when I started to realise there was something about you that I really wanted"  
"yeh. See Seifer wound me up about that so much, it was like his major way to torment me. But I didn't care that he was tormenting me, I just got mad that he used you"

"I can't believe I only realised that I liked you then, and it was unfortunately just when you started going out with Tanya"

"I only went out with Tanya after I found out about you and Seifer that morning"

"I cant believe it took us both so long"

"I know. I was always so worried you'd figure it out. And then after you told me about your dad I came so close to telling you how I felt but then it never happened.."

"I know. I just still can't believe it…"

"I know. But Seifer, Tanya none of that matters anymore. All that matters now, is that we got there in the end. And we have each other. And I really do love you Rinoa"

"I love you Squall, more than anyone else ever"

"Rinoa, it is so hard for me to explain why you make me so happy. No one has ever cared about me. I mean I was in an orphanage and then I was straight into a military academy .I've never had anyone love me, and I've never really cared about anyone, never loved anyone. Until you came along"

Every single word Squall said, only made Rinoa love him more. He really was in a word, perfect.

After dinner the sun was just starting to set and Rinoa persuaded Squall not to call a taxi, so the two of them could walk back along the beaches to Balamb.

It was a beautiful sight, the orangey sun setting just on the horizon of the calm beauty. It was like nature itself was signalling through all this majestic beauty that everything was finally right. After all this time, everything had fallen into place and that Rinoa really and truly was meant to be with Squall. There was no need to say anything as they walked down the sandy shore, watching the waves. They both knew exactly how the other was feeling. They both knew that they were both feeling the same love, contentment, peace and harmony. They were both truly happy.

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The sun brought the same feelings back when it woke Rinoa the next morning by shining cheerily through the windows. She blinked a view times and then glanced around the room. It was tidy and organised _'ok so it's Squalls room'_ she thought to herself. Her room looked like a bombsite. She stretched out in the bed, brushing her hair out of her face. She felt a tiny flicker of panic when she realised that Squall wasn't there, but sitting up in bed she heard the sound of the shower running in the next room. Content with the knowledge(and image) that Squall was in the shower she lay back down and closed her eyes. But there was a knocking at the door. Being way to comfortable to get out of bed she decided to ignore it. But the knocking continued and got louder. Reluctantly she sat up and reached for something to cover up with. Neither the person at the door, or probably Squall either for that matter would be too pleased if she answered the door in her current attire. Or lack there off. She reached around on the floor for her dress, but couldn't seem to find it, so she just grabbed squalls shirt and threw that on, hastily fastening the buttons and going to the door. When she opened it though, she felt like slamming it shut again. Damn stupid Seifer! What did he want?

"Go away" Rinoa said as soon as she saw him

"I'm looking for Squall." he looked Rinoa up and down and said "I don't suppose I need to ask what you're doing here then"

"No, you don't need to ask. So you can just leave"

"Someone's touchy this morning" Seifer laughed "last night not the sparkling event you hoped for?"

"If you must know, Seifer it was an amazing night."

"Really?" Seifer chuckled "I mean I just don't see it. You and him I mean. I just feel sorry for you, that you ended up with him"

"Don't feel too sorry Seifer. He was better than you" Rinoa said with a little sarcastic smile.

Seifer looked ever so slightly taken aback by this. Good. She wasn't about to let this idiot ruin how happy she was. Because for once in her life she was truly and completely happy. And nothing was going to take that away. She had found the man of her dreams, found true love. nothing would change that.

'Whatever" Seifer sighed "I don't even want to talk to you, I need to talk to Squall"

"Sorry Seifer" Rinoa getting the door ready to shut in his face "he's in the shower"

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**Ha you got snapped Seifer. Totally snapped. Well well I hope you all liked that chapter please review and let me know what you think. And don't forget to look out for the sob last chapter coming soon. I will post it next week even though I really don't want the story to end because I have loved writing it so much. But atleast we have the sequel hey. Well anyway let me know what you think xx**


	20. That forever thing

**Disclaimer: I don't own ff8. But I do own this(now complete) story**

**A/N; omg I am gonna cry because well the story I oh so love writing has come to an end. Ok firstly I have a whole bunch of people who need thanking Much thanks to everyone who has read this. Much love to who reviewed at anytime in this story kitcatpadeac,jesh 18, Xxphoenix bladexX, Ayato, over the limit, Angelz-di,Boaspika, wolf dog girl, the wonderful nobody,teresa, deceitful sorceress, r,ahh,sooo,lionhearted! thanks to those of you have picked the story up somewhere in the middle and reviewed since then., SJsilver, Sayuri21, crazyturkey, RinNoMiko and EmoDiva. Thanks of course to Zellycat for the reviews and all the other support with my stories. And special thanks have to go to Draven nightly, lilnaych, Renegade seraph and rinnyheartillyizawesome who have been with me practically the whole way through this little fic! Well as I said I am very sad this fic is ending because I have loved writing it so much and I hop you guys have loved reading it. **

**So Squall and Rinoa..it took them a while but they got there in the end. Well this chapter takes place a year and a half on from the end of the last one and fills some of the time between this and the sequel(which is coming soon I promise!) it is just short and sweet**

**So once again I say squinoa forever, many thanks, much love and enjoy the final chapter of 'love never comes easy'…………..**

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The relationships we form when we're teenagers are only temporary. Each love is an experience that we learn and move on from .Young love never lasts.

Squall Leonhart had heard this so many times. And it actually made him laugh. Few things made him laugh, this was one of them.

For him young love had been going strong for over a year and a half. Contrary from when he was a little younger, love was now the thing Squall had faith in. His reason to believe, his reason to smile had been the same for so long. Rinoa was his reason for smiling. And she was the only one who made him happy.

Squall thought of this so many times, thought about how lucky he was to have met Rinoa. Sure it all started out a little strange, but things ended up perfect.

He was graduating as a SeeD tonight, top of his class. He would have graduated sooner, but he took a lot of time out to spend with Rinoa when they first got together. She was worth it. The graduation was a huge, formal celebration and Squall had decided this would be the perfect night to ask something he had wanted to ask for a while now. He knew they were young and he knew what people would say, but he didn't care. He loved Rinoa more than anything and was pretty sure she felt the same way about him. It was just one of those forever things.

In the year and a half since they first got together, so much had changed but they had always remained the same. And now Squall was ready for the next step………

The Quad was decorated grandly for the prestigious occasion of Graduation and almost everyone in Garden was there, some graduating, others just guests. Zell and Selphie were graduating along side Squall, while Irvine had chosen not to become a SeeD, instead training as a sharpshooter, and Rinoa had taken a course in Medicine as she decided SeeD was not for her. Seifer, on the other hand, had left Garden all together and hadn't actually been seen for quite a while. Not that anyone was unhappy about this, all he had ever done was cause trouble. And Squall was just glad he wasn't there to ruin this night.

After all the official business of the night was over Squall decided he would finally chose his moment and take his chance. He spotted Rinoa chatting with Selphie over by all the drinks and attempting to calm his now raging nerves he headed over there

"Hey Rinoa" he said "Can I talk to you please"

"Sure, what is it baby"

"umm…its nothing…" Squall suddenly realised that he hadn't actually thought were he was going to do this, it was not exactly something he could do in front of everyone "..but would you just come outside with me".

Rinoa nodded and he grabbed her hand and lead her to the first place that came into his head; the balcony. But as he crossed the dance floor, Headmaster Cid approached them

"Squall, hello"

"Evening Sir"

"Congratulations. You're officially a SeeD now. Now there is some business I would very much like to discuss with you. We have just received word of a mission from one of the guests and I think you would be the perfect candidate"

"Well I…"

"I'm sure Miss Heartilly wont mind if we borrow you for a just a few minutes"

"Not at all" Rinoa said, smiling. Sure it was fine with her now, but is this what being a SeeD was going to be like? Constantly putting his life aside for missions. SeeD is what he wanted his whole life, but now he wanted Rinoa more.

And a few minutes slowly become an hour and then before he knew it two . He was still standing discussing something or other with Cid and these clients when Rinoa came over. Squall felt incredibly guilty, he had left her alone all night

"I think I might head off hunni" she said to him

"No, I…" he turned to the men he had been talking to "I just need 5 minutes"

"Squall, this is important" Cid sighed

"So is this" Squall muttered to himself. Then he took Rinoas hand and lead her outside to the balcony of Garden which looked out into the night sky.

"Squall what is it?" she asked him "is everything okay?"

"It's fine. I just… I have to ask you something"

He hadn't prepared what he was going to say, but the night was nearly over, and he had to do this.it was a little rushed and maybe a little sudden and not exactly what he had had in mind but it would have to do."and this isn't exactly how I planned to ask you, and this isn't how I wanted the whole evening to turn out. But…I just have to ask you"

"Ask me what?" Rinoa asked sounding slightly puzzled

"Rinoa….will you marry me?"

Rinoa just blinked at him a few times, and then looked as if she was going to faint

"I know it might seem a little crazy, but it feels so right. And I think I sort of left the ring back in the room….but….please say you'll think about it"

It had never occurred to Squall there was a chance she'd say no. He hadn't prepared himself for that kind of heartbreak. Thankfully he didn't have to.

"Yes.!!!!I wanna marry you!!!"…………..

Squall pulled Rinoa into his arms and kissed her, knowing it would be one of many kisses that they would share when they spent the rest of their lives together. They stood out on the balcony for a few minutes just staring into the stars and both thinking exactly what this meant. They both knew that there future was being laid out now, their future was together. After that Squall decided not to return to whatever business he was dealing with and they spent the rest of the night dancing, just letting the hours slip by unnoticed.

Rinoa was so sure that there was actually no one more perfect than Squall. She considered herself to be the luckiest girl in the world. She was the one who had found the person of her dreams, the type of person she had always dreamt of. Someone who really and truly loved her. And as she danced with him, she felt completely at peace, like she could stay in that moment forever. It was like they had their own little world together. A world they were only drawn out of when Irvine started suggestively coughing loudly.

Looking around the room, Squall and Rinoa realised that almost everyone had left. There were one or two other couples dancing and other than that it was just Selphie and Irvine standing there watching them, next to Zell and his date who neither Squall nor Rinoa recognised

"Hey" Rinoa smiled at her friends

"Hiya. Oh by the way, This is Kala, shes new, I don't think you've met" Zell said

"No. Hi Kayla" Rinoa said

"Nice to meet you guys" she mumbled a little shyly

"It's um kinda late you two…." Selphie said grinning

"Yeh, but we were all thinking of maybe taking this night over to Balamb, have a little celebration on the town!" Irvine said

"oooh, that sounds so fun!" Rinoa gasped

"yeh, okay sure" Squall said "Lets go out. Celebrate being engaged to the best girl in the world" he said before leaning down and kissing Rinoa

Irvine let out a low whistle "oooooh. You might want calm it a down a little, loverboy" he laughed

"Shut up" Squall sighed with a small laugh "it's not like I havent already promised to make an honest woman out of her"

So the whole gang, headed over to Balamb town. As the friends walked through the night Kala walked along side Squall and Rinoa while Zell Selphie and Irvine argued over where to go first.

"I'm really happy for you two by the way, even if I don't really know you" Kala said blushing a little

"Thanks" Rinoa grinned

"I mean it. You guys are so sweet. How did you get together?" she asked

Squall and Rinoa exchanged glances and then both broke into smiles

"You know what" Squall said, wrapping his arm around Rinoas waist "It's kind of a long story"

**xx The end xx**

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squall is right, it was long. 20 chapters lol and nooo I am going to miss this story so much it is unbelievable. Hope you liked the little ending.Once again so many hugs and thanks to everyone and like I promised the Sequel '**the love of your life**' will be coming soon. Much love guys._


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